Inferiority Complex
by Bialy
Summary: A collection of Matsuda stories, mostly short, based off the Ficlet 50 prompts. Because the guy doesn't get enough love. Spoiler warning for pretty much everything in the series.
1. And Life Goes On

-1Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it. Death Note belongs to Ohba and Obata. You'd know if I owned it. Matsuda'd be the one in leather.

Author's note: Bunch of ficlets based off the prompts for the Ficlet 50 on live journal. I'm not doing the challenge, just using the prompts because I'm too lazy to think of my own. They'll be mostly Matsuda-centric because the guy doesn't get enough love and idk I just like Matsuda. Reviews adored. Spoilers for everything, pretty much.

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**And Life Goes On**

**Prompt: 20. Ghost**

Everything the new L did had the potential to go wrong a hundred different ways, and always went exactly as planned. But on nights like the one he'd just had, Matsuda was sure that after surviving one of the most notorious cases in history, he was going to end up shot in the back of the head by one of the gangsters Near sent them up against.

Yawning, he unlocked the door of his apartment, sighing when he realised he'd left the lights on before heading out. _Stupid Matsuda_, he thought to himself. _Looks like nothing's changed_. But, he conceded, if you looked at it properly, everything had.

Checking his watch, he determined that 3am was in no way too late to eat, and pulled out an arbitrary microwave meal from the freezer compartment of his fridge. He poked the buttons tentatively, hoping that the machine would actually work right on the first try, then cursed and poked the buttons again, a little more viciously. It beeped in reluctant acceptance, and Matsuda leant against the counter to wait for his dinner (breakfast?) to be ready.

God, it had to have been Yellow Box they'd gone to tonight.

One of the members of the syndicate they were taking down on Near's orders had been Light's age, to look at him. Light's height. His hair was longer, and black, but that didn't stop Matsuda seeing the same contorted, screaming face he'd seen a year ago when the shots started firing.

He'd almost missed a crucial shot. The kid had fumbled pulling out his gun, and Matsuda had had the time to level his gun, the time to prepare the shot that would send the kid's gun flying across the floor, but he hadn't been able to. The shots had flown past Mogi's head. Mogi had almost died, because he couldn't bring himself to shoot Light again.

Ide was right. It was about time he pulled himself together.

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**A/N **again lol I can't shut up. Sorry if my characterisation is way way out, I'm hoping it'll get better as I practice writing the character/s a bit more. This is following on from the last chapter, with the drug bust Near tells Aizawa about. I promise I won't make them all so angsty. I just wanted the first one to be after it all ends. Idk. Just tell me if it sucked D:


	2. The Most Important Choice

Disclaimer: Currently, I do not own Death Note or Matsuda. But I pray everyday.

Note: This'll prolly be the only quick-ish update you'll ever see from me on any of my fanfics, ever, so anybody reading who's likely to glance vaguely over my page in the future, _cherish this moment_. I really love Matsuda's hero worship of Soichiro. I think that's one of the reasons he latches onto Light so strongly, cos he's the Chief's son (which is basically the position Matsuda would fill in his private perfect world). Anyway I always thought that that influenced his decision to stay on the task force way more than actually wanting to catch Kira. R&R?

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**The Most Important Choice**

**Prompt: 17. Soldier**

Lives on the line. A fight to the death, most likely the deaths of the people fighting against Kira. One last chance to turn back, and get out with your lives.

When the Chief had given them the choice to stay or go, for Matsuda, the choice couldn't have been easier. He stayed where he was. Because the Chief was staying, because the Chief thought that catching Kira was something worth giving up his life for. And the way Matsuda looked at it, the Chief's life must be worth at least three of his, so by a simple process of deduction (and simple was something Matsuda was very good at), catching Kira was worth Matsuda's life. Three times over, in fact.

So Matsuda remained sitting down, as people began to trickle out of the room, some muttering things like "ludicrous" and "not worth it" and "stopping a guy who's practically doing our jobs anyway". When people seemed to stop moving, Matsuda looked round. The big guy Matsuda had noticed on the first day - Mogi, he thought his name was - was sitting by the computers, and three other men were seated round a table, voices low in conversation. Matsuda suddenly felt very alone.

At five, the Chief returned. He looked round at the few of them that had remained, while the laptop at the back of the room whirred passively, and Watari waited. His eyes passed over Matsuda and for a second the younger man thought he saw something - pride? appreciation? - and then the glance moved on.

Matsuda didn't need the message from L flashing up on the laptop to tell him he had made the right decision.


	3. Imperfect Recall

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: There'll probably be another chapter (or two) based on Matsuda shooting Light, simply because I think it's such a big part of his psyche after Yellow Box. As Kudatsuo-chan pointed out, Matsuda probably saw Light as a surrogate brother of sorts and shooting him/find out he's Kira is bound to have left some scars. Which are fun to poke at and dissect with fanfiction. Anyway I hope I didn't ramble in this one, I know I came close to going off topic _a lot_. Tried to keep it succinct. Enjoy.

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**Imperfect Recall**

**Prompt: 47. Frozen**

Sometimes, Matsuda remembers shooting Light Yagami, and sometimes he doesn't.

He knows he shot Kira. He remembers levelling the gun, the feel of cool metal against his hot palms, the shudder in his arms as the bullets were fired. There are no problems with Matsuda's memory, it is simply that, as the event gets farther and farther away, he finds himself unable to equate the twisted madman at Yellow Box with the earnest seventeen year old who had smiled at Matsuda the first time the Chief had introduced him to his family.

Sometimes, Matsuda remembers that Light Yagami is - was - is? - Kira. Most of the time, Light is a kid, who helped solve cases that had detectives baffled, and was kind about the fact that he was smarter than Matsuda. He is frozen in time to Matsuda, despite the years he spent in his presence, seeing him day in and day out as they tackled the Kira case. No - as the investigators tackled the Kira case, and Light shepherded them down the path he wanted to take. Matsuda can see clearly that Light was manipulative, but most of the time, he can't let himself see him as a killer.

He understands that this is self-delusion, and that it is, in all likelihood, not healthy. But at the times when Matsuda needs his delusion the most - the anniversary of the Chief's death, the 28th of January, every time he visits Sayu - he does not particularly care.


	4. Support

Disclaimer: If I update more than once a day from now on (and APOLOGIES to anyone (currently Kudatsuo-chan) who has this on update if I do that and spam your inbox. I hate myself too.) I'm just going to dispense with the disclaimer, I think. I mean, sue me if you want. You'll get my copies of DN mangas, about £40 and a bunch of legal bills. I have nothing else to give.

Note: My DN mangas have now moved from my bookshelf to right next to my computer. I might be taking this too seriously. This one's a little long but I wanted to have the Chief supporting Matsuda again. Because in my mind this is completely what happened after the Yotsuba thing. I KNOW I've rambled here, but ah well.

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**Support**

**Prompt: 37. Bond**

Being on the Kira case meant you faced death every day, Matsuda knew that. But standing in front of a group of men, one of whom you knew had the power to kill you practically as quick as look at you, was something else entirely.

Up until that day, he had never realised just how fast he could talk or how smoothly he could lie when his life was on the line. At least, he thought it was smooth.

He had faced the imminent anger and verbal abuse when he had returned to the investigation headquarter, but it had quickly turned to debate surrounding their next move. Knowing he wasn't needed when it came to the intricacies of convoluted plots and brilliant schemes, Matsuda had been able to retreat to his room, feeling distinctly like a dog slinking away to lick its wounds. When he was alone, he leant against the wall and, finally, let out a long, shuddering breath.

It was several hours later when the Chief knocked on his door.

"Matsuda? Remember the investigation we're working on? Kira?"

"C-coming, Chief!" he yelped, scrambling for the door. He'd probably fallen asleep, because he certainly didn't _remember_ being away for so long as to merit someone coming looking for him. He pulled open the door and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I - I guess I dozed off or something," he offered, rubbing the back of his neck.

The Chief smiled. "I wouldn't worry about it, Matsuda. It's been quite a night for you."

Matsuda laughed, a little awkwardly. "Yeah. That was stupid. But - hey, at least we got a little information out of it, right?"

The older man frowned. "Perhaps."

"Perhaps?" Matsuda was confused.

"As things worked out, yes, it was worth it. But, if something had happened to you, then I do not think that the few pieces of information we have gleaned from your escapade would have been worthwhile at all."

Matsuda blinked. "Really? But, getting information, getting leads, that's all that matters in this case, right? I mean, I know I'm not much use to everyone here, so if I was at least able to do this -"

"Matsuda! Don't talk like that!" The Chief's voice was sharp, but at Matsuda's look of shock his expression softened, and he laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "You're a good cop. And an asset to this investigation. I am pleased and proud that you chose to stay on, and that we have this opportunity to work together on such an important case. You are not expendable and you are not useless. Do not allow yourself to forget that."

Matsuda nodded dumbly. "O-okay Chief, I won't!"

Yagami smiled at him again, in a distinctly fatherly way. "Good. Now, come on, you have a job to do, after all."


	5. Curiosity

Disclaimer: Not mine…

Note: The chapter in which I start _abusing italics and dialogue_. I love the scenes with Ryuk and Matsuda. There's one bit in the manga where Light talks over the radio to Aizawa and Ide about the possibility of someone tailing them, and Matsuda goes "A tail tailing a tail? That's confusing…" and Ryuk floating behind him just goes "You're stupid, Matsuda". Yeah. I liked that bit.

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**Curiosity**

**Prompt: 10. Float**

"Hey, Ryuk?"

The shinigami sighed from where he was floating, upside down. He wasn't going to let Light forget about making him do this for a _long_ time.

"Shut up, Matsuda, no one likes you."

"Light does!"

_Sure, you keep thinking that._ "What do you want _this_ time?"

"Why won't you tell us who Kira is?" Matsuda asked, for what must have been the fiftieth time, dangling an apple in front of Ryuk.

The shinigami gave the human a baleful, upside down glare. "We've been through this. Shouldn't you be _doing_ something? You have a job, don't you?"

"Yeah, this is it."

"Sucks to be you."

A pause, which didn't last as long as Ryuk had hoped, then -

"Ryuk, what's Kira like?"

"He's -" Ryuk began, then stopped himself, noticing the change in Matsuda's tone. It had lost the inquisitive, pestering quality Ryuk had come to believe belonged only to small children and this man. Instead, Matsuda's question had been quiet, and thoughtful. "You actually care? I thought you just wanted to catch the guy. And you're sure not smart enough to use anything I tell you to profile him, or even remember it long enough to tell someone who is -"

"No, I don't care about that. I - I was just wondering, I guess."

Now, Ryuk's curiosity was piqued. "Yeah? Why were you wondering? Kira's a murdering psychopath who has hair growing in his ears, is that what you want to hear?"

But the look on Matsuda's face said that it wasn't. Ryuk was getting confused now. He knew from Light that Matsuda was the most pro-Kira of the investigators, but this…

"You thinking of switching to the other side?" Ryuk asked, his tone the shinigami equivalent of raising an eyebrow.

"No! Of course not! Kira is evil!" Matsuda said, his voice rising. "I just - he seems - I don't know. He's a killer but…I'm not sure if he's a murderer."

There was another pause. This time, Ryuk broke it.

"You're stupid, Matsuda."

"Yeah, I know."


	6. Shooting Range

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Note: Okay I don't know much about the mechanics of guns or shooting ranges so if anything based on that is wrong, really sorry. But has anyone noticed how good a shot Matsuda is? He's a bumbling idiot the rest of the time but put a gun in his hand and he's a madman. This is my theory why.

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**Shooting Range**

**Prompt: 02. Count**

One more round, slotted into the gun. Ready. Take aim. Fire.

The Chief sometimes teased Matsuda about the amount of time he spent on the shooting range, but Matsuda didn't really mind. Every time he came here he had a few more bull's-eyes and a few less wasted shots. His accuracy with a gun was something Matsuda prided himself on.

Matsuda was well aware that he got things wrong a lot, and sometimes overlooked glaring facts in the cases he was working. He knew Aizawa thought he had the attention span of a concussed goldfish and the emotional maturity to boot. But if there was one thing Matsuda could do, it was shoot straight and shoot true, and he was going to make sure that when he was needed, when he finally had the chance to do what _he_ was good at, he was going to make the shot count.


	7. Symmetry

Disclaimer: Bialy does not own Death Note

Note: For continuity's sake I'm going to be putting all names into their English forms, e.g. Light Yagami rather than Yagami Light/Raito, simply because it's easier for me that way to keep track of it and stop messing things round. Apologies to anyone who prefers the Japanese forms.

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**Symmetry**

**Prompt: 24. Asylum**

Matsuda dug in his pockets for his ID - his real one, this time - and the man gave the badge a cursory glance before nodding him through. God, it was dark here, and Matsuda had expected it to be cold but instead, the air was hot and humid, and he imagined that made it all the worse. Within minutes of walking down the thin, stifling corridors, he was loosening his tie, and thanking whatever God there was that _he_ wasn't the one locked up down here.

It was in the floors below the building the original L had built that Teru Mikami was being held. Matsuda counted eighteen cells as he made his way into the bowels of his building, before he stopped counting. Just how many people had L thought he was going to have to lock up?

Mikami was hunched at the back of his cell. His shirt was damp and his hair was streaked across his forehead, unkempt and gathering grease. Matsuda's mind jumped back to the first time he had seen this man, at one of the Kira rallies on TV. The caged figure before him and the calm, graceful man speaking softly into the microphone at the rally didn't even seem to be the same person. Nine days and the burning of his world appeared to have changed the prosecutor more than anyone could have expected.

"Teru Mikami?" he asked hesitantly.

Mikami's head jerked up, and his eyes darkened with suspicion when he saw who was standing by the bars. He licked his lips, and squinted at Matsuda, as if trying to work something out.

_This was a really stupid idea, Matsuda_, he thought to himself.

"Touta Matsuda," Mikami said suddenly. His throat sounded dry, and Matsuda wondered how often they gave him something to drink.

For a second, Matsuda was surprised that Mikami had remembered his name, from the eight or so he had had to write down. Perhaps he still had the shinigami eyes? Or maybe it was just that, like Matsuda, he'd had every image of that day burned into him.

"Uh. Yeah. Hi," Matsuda said awkwardly, holding up a hand in greeting.

Mikami's suspicious look deepened. Matsuda could feel the question of why he was there floating between them.

"Um - right. I'm not sure why - I just - well -" _Very good, Matsuda, next week we__'__ll move onto complete sentences._

"You have come to gloat?" Mikami asked, and his voice was void of bitterness or dislike. His voice was void of anything.

"Wha -? No! I just - I thought someone - someone at least, should visit you…" he trailed off, realising how stupid the idea really _did_ sound. _But you can__'__t just do that, arrest someone then leave them to die, not having them ever find out _anything _that happened__…_

"That is strange. I attempted to kill you, Touta Matsuda. I wrote your name in the notebook. Had Kira's plan succeeded, you would be dead."

Matsuda chuckled nervously. "Good thing it didn't work, I guess. Um. For me, I mean." Then, he noticed something. "Wait - Kira? Back at the warehouse, you only called him God…"

"That man is no God of mine!" Mikami spat, and for the first time emotion flared up in his voice, thick, angry and venomous. Matsuda almost recoiled at the force of it.

He studied Mikami for a few moments. "I guess we have something in common," he said, attempting a weak smile. "He let us both down."

Something similar to surprise flickered on Mikami's face, and he pulled himself to his feet, returning Matsuda's gaze. For several minutes, the two men stood in silence, neither sure if they should be trying to prove something, or if it was they that should be expecting proof. After a while, Mikami turned away. Sighing, Matsuda stuck his hands in his pockets, and turned to leave.

"Maybe you will visit me again, Touta Matsuda. It seems unlikely I will have much else to do for the remainder of my life."

Matsuda glanced back. "Sure thing, Mikami," he said, and smiled again.

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Note again: Yeah Idk if I like this or not but I figure these two actually have more in common that they'd think. And Matsuda seems the type to get sentimental and visit prisoners that tried to kill him. This is set the day before Mikami "goes crazy and dies in jail". And wow this turned out long. As far as the ficlets go, anyway.


	8. Illumination

Disclaimer: It's really not mine, folks. You can tell by the fact that there's no explicit man love, and that Sayu thinks Matsuda is too old for her.

Note: I'm going to be cheesy and 'dedicate' this story to Kudatsuo-chan now. I was gonna keep writing this even if I got no reviews because I just wanted to write some Matsuda stuff, but she reviewed and as such, I felt I actually had someone to write the story _for_, and have been putting more effort in since. Thank you for the support! Thanks also to Sonar for reminding me that the other officers have a part to play in this too.

And now this story. I really hope this one didn't go wrong. I added in two sentences las tminute because I felt it was lacking something. _Tell me I didn__'__t ruin in_.

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**Illumination**

**Prompt: 07. Crash**

"You might have actually won…and I might have lost."

Near word's sounded like they were being spoken from a way away, through some kind of fog, like the static of a radio. Laboriously, obsessively, he explained the myriad of plans that had woven together to create the moment they were standing in.

Matsuda did not hear a word of it.

All he was aware of was the coldness of the stone floor against his knees, the trapped, demented look on Light's face and the feeling of the bottom of the world dropping out underneath him.

When Light collapsed, Matsuda was jarred back to the situation at hand. As the boy contorted in crazed laughter, Light Yagami melted away in front of him

Afterwards, when the chaos around them seemed to have swirled to a momentary standstill, he asked Aizawa to explain it to him. The older man studied him sadly for a few moments, and, sighing, laid a hand on his shoulder.


	9. However Unexpected

Disclaimer: It's still not mine. In other news, I left the house for the first time in ages today.

Note: I like this one, if not necessarily for how it turned out, but for the idea. I like thinking that they all just spontaneously turned up at the original HQ and decided that one way or another they were going to stay a team, rather than making a conscious decision to do so. Also I want to do a fic on Yamamoto earlier. He's the only person Matsuda ever seems to have seniority over XD Perhaps that 'going out drinking' incident that was referenced?

Also I know most people aren't supposed to know about Kira and him being dead and such but I really love the idea of all these kid detectives (like Matsuda was back at the start) looking at Matsuda like "That guy _shot Kira_." You just know _someone__'__s_ going to start following him around like he did with Soichiro.

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**However Unexpected**

**Prompt: 08. Accident**

The Kira case was over, but it didn't look like anyone was about to leave.

When Matsuda had finally managed to bring him back to the NPA, getting his badge back, and receiving a reverent stare from one of the young detectives who, it appeared had been told that he was the man who had _shot Kira_ and saved L's life. Rumours, it appeared, spread particularly fast when they were true.

Matsuda hated rumours.

He had gone to the same room it had started in - the original task force headquarters, back before meeting L, before losing Ukita, before the fake names and tinted helmets. He hadn't been sure of what, exactly, he had intended on doing, but when he got there, he didn't have to be.

Aizawa was sitting at a computer, frowning and rubbing his chin. Ide was a few tables back, reading a newspaper and swirling coffee around in a polystyrene cup. Mogi was leaning against the window, watching the street below. They glanced up when Matsuda entered, nodded, then went back to what they were doing.

Aizawa picked up the piece of paper lying next to him and held it out to the younger detective. "Take a look at this. Weird rash of robberies, accompanied by the occasional murder - same guy, as near as the police can tell, but they have no idea who. Seems like Kira put the fear of God into him and he's been ultra-careful about his identity. Also, Ide thinks it could be a group."

Confused, Matsuda took the offered sheet and glanced over the information. Another case? But why? Didn't they have jobs to get back to…?

"What do you think?" Aizawa said, leaning back in his chair. "Should we look into it?"

_We._

Like nothing had changed, except the fact that Kira wasn't their target anymore. "Sure, count me in."

At first, Matsuda thought that the group had reformed and decided to carry on working without consulting him, or even inviting him, but as the day unfolded and he watched the little uncertainties and larger questions coming out, he realised that hadn't been what had happened at all.

"It was sort of…spontaneous," Ide said later, as they trudged down the street together, Ide with his hands in his pockets, and Matsuda dissecting a sandwich. "I turned up about eight-ish, and Aizawa was there, just sitting at a desk. Mogi turned up a bit later. Then we knew it was just a matter of time before you made an appearance."

"So, what, we're staying as a group?"

"That's what it looked like. Aizawa's going to clear it with the boss tomorrow."

Matsuda studied his sandwich, making sure not to ruin the moment by telling Ide that he had been hoping against hope that this would happen, and it was the first time he had had friends on the force. He nodded slowly. "Sounds like a plan," he said, and took a bite of the sandwich.

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An irrelevant note: Idk why Matsuda is dissecting his sandwich, he had to be doing something other than drinking coffee so he's taking the tomatoes out. Or something. He's completely the type to pick things out of his food that he doesn't like.

Also I like Ide and Aizawa. And Mogi. And…the task force really. But…not Light. Never Light. Ide, Mogi, Aizawa and Matsu, to me they're slowly turning into Charlie's Angels, and you've got Near on the monitor like "GOOD MORNING ANGELS" and they're all like "GOOD MORNING CHARLIE I MEAN NEAR I MEAN L" and then they're in swimsuits/Speedos and then I stop paying attention to the plot because Matsuda's mostly naked. Wait, that's Baywatch. God. Well whatever. Matsuda in Speeeeeedos.

_No oh my God wait. _Matsu, Ide and Mogi are the Angels and Aizawa is like Bosley.

God, Bialy, _shut up and leave the readers alone_.

R&R?


	10. Good Morning Sunshine

Disclaimer: does not own

Note: _Look, a linear storyline! Could it be Bialy has changed her ways?_

Lol no, but this fic does indeed follow on from the last. One and only time, chaps. Also, trying for a short A/N this time to make up for rambling like a madwoman last time.

I like Aizawa. But apparently I am horrible at thinking of ways to write about him. Idea for this goes to Sonar, who suggested something about Aizawa being not mean to Matsuda. Thank you.

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**Good Morning, Sunshine**

**Prompt: 49. Sleep**

Matsuda had fallen asleep.

Aizawa rolled his eyes and nudged the drooling detective's leg with his foot. "Wake up, Matsuda, you come here to work, remember?"

"Mmph?" Matsuda mumbled something else incoherently, rubbing his eyes with one hand and fumbling for coffee with the other. Sighing, Aizawa rose to fetch him some.

Aizawa had been surprised - no, try shocked - when he saw the determination and dedication with which Matsuda had attacked every new case they'd had. He'd work late, with Aizawa sometimes coming in in the morning to find him slumped at his desk, and Matsuda would walk around for the rest of the say with the ink of photocopied pages down his cheek. He had expected the younger man to be his usual distracted self - if not more so, given what had happened barely a month before.

Matsuda was still inept. No, maybe that was a bit harsh. Matsuda tried hard and he'd had a lot of successes, if Aizawa really thought about it. He wasn't as smart, as efficient or as resourceful as the other members of the group, but…but he was honest. You knew where you stood with Touta Matsuda. And he always gave his best to whatever task Aizawa assigned him to.

But he was beginning to wonder if Matsuda's sudden zealous approach to his job belied something else. He had not referred to Kira as Light, or Light as Kira, even once since his death at Yellow Box. Aizawa had the feeling that Matsuda was separating them, compartmentalising in a way that couldn't be good for him.

He had been too hard on Matsuda recently.

Full coffee mug in hand, he returned to Matsuda's desk. The man was staring at the ceiling, blinking, and looking like he was trying to clear his head. "I guess I fell asleep here again, sorry," he said sheepishly, as Aizawa handed him the coffee. "Thanks."

"Don't worry about it. You want to get some breakfast?"

If Matsuda was surprised by Aizawa's change in attitude from when he had left him, he didn't show it. He picked up his coat, downed his coffee (Aizawa consciously bit back a sarcastic comment when Matsuda complained about how hot it was) and followed the new Chief of Detectives out of the building.

They ate pancakes in relative silence, Matsuda still waking up and Aizawa's mind on a hundred other things. When they were finished, Aizawa picked up the bill.

"You sure?" Matsuda asked uncertainly. "I can pay…"

"No, it's alright. I've got this one. You have the words "grocery store" printed on your left cheek, by the way."

"I - what? _Again_?" Matsuda picked up a spoon and tried to check his reflection, trying to turn it upside down to get a better look.

Aizawa laughed and pulled the spoon out of his grip, dropping it on the table and steering him out the door.

"Come on, Ide and Mogi will be in soon. And _I_ make a habit of not being late."

It was the closest Aizawa would come to insulting Matsuda for a good few days.


	11. Projecting

Disclaimer: Overnight, I obtained ownership of the Death Note franchise.

(this is a lie)

Note: Now THIS one follows on from the last one as well. And the next one will follow on from this one. Lol it's like a real storyline. Yeah I hope I did the nightmare okay, I tried to start running sentences together to show how thing are going in Matsu's head. I know Light was prolly more pissed off at Matsuda than betrayed or anything, but Matsuda's probably putting how he feels into Light in the dream. And there's a word for it and I know that word and I have forgotten it.

PROJECTING! And now I'm going to make that the title for this chapter.

Also I have a question. You know on the document manager on this thing, it keeps your stuff there after you make it into a story? I can delete that without it deleting my story, right? ARGH DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS COMPLICATED.

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**Projecting**

**Prompt: 41. Awake**

_Stone wall cold against his back and blood making the floor slick and red. His own hands dripping with it, struggling to keep their grip on a smoking gun._

_A body riddled with bullets and brown hair falling into brown eyes locked in an accusatory stare. Standing when it couldn't shouldn't couldn't stand a body with that many bullets shouldn't stand and he's still bleeding God he's bleeding and _I've shot him_ - _

_Kira's twisted, bloody fades slumps into horror and fear and it's not Kira, it's Light Yagami, and God it's _Light _looking terrified and he's screaming and he's clutching at the bullet holes, and he looks at Matsuda, at a man he trusted and a man who shot him and he's screaming that Matsuda killed him, that it's all his fault and how could he _do _this to the Chief' son -_

And Matsuda wakes up, and it's not Light gasping for air, it's him, and his arms are shaking like he's just fired a gun.

He lies awake for the rest of the night with his heart out of time with his ragged breathing. At 5am he fumbles for his pistol and clutches it to his chest because he's a cop, and that's all he's got to try to protect himself from the boy in his dreams who's going to drive him insane.


	12. Tough Love

Disclaimer: I want pancakes. It's 5pm and I haven't eaten all daaaay. Oh yeah and I don't own Death Note.

Note: I know I said I was going to do the Misa and Yamamoto ones today but I got distracted by Ide and stuff and I really like the task force okay. It doesn't take a lot to distract me when they're involved.

I really don't think I like this one. I love the idea of it, I just think I could have done better. And it ran on for ages. Well, here it is anyway. There might be another chapter in the 'what happened after Yellow Box' arc I've ended up with but idk. We'll see.

Liiiiittle bit of foul language in this one. Don't worry, it won't become a habit. I just felt it was appropriate here.

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**Tough Love**

**Prompt: 27. Knots**

There was no response when Ide knocked the door, so he knocked harder, and did not stop. _Ignore _that_, Matsuda._

The apartment's inhabitant seemed to realise that the person at the door wasn't going away, and the door opened. Matsuda was still dressed in what he had been wearing at work, but it looked decidedly more rumpled, and his tie was gone.

"Don't you see enough of me not to come knocking at my door at ten o'clock at night?" he sighed, stepping back and ushering Ide inside.

"Have you left this place at all recently?"

"Well, obviously, I mean, you see me everyday -"

"Apart from work, Matsuda." Ide looked across at his friend, frowning. The changes in the younger man had been imperceptible and obvious at the same time. Even Aizawa was worried, but Aizawa would never admit he had been the one to ask Ide to check up on Matsuda that evening, any more than he'd ever admit that he actually liked the little idiot.

"Of course I have," Matsuda said dismissively. "You want a drink?" He disappeared into the kitchen.

"Coffee please, and no you haven't."

Matsuda reappeared, brandishing a jar of coffee. "Then where did I get a new jar of this stuff?"

Ide stared back at him. "You know what I mean, Matsuda, and you know what I'm here to say."

"If that's the case," Matsuda said, ducking out of sight again, raising his voice so that Ide could still hear, "why do you even need to say it?"

Dropping onto the couch, Ide sighed. He didn't respond.

A couple of minutes later, Matsuda re-entered the room with two mugs of coffee. He sat down at the other end of the couch to Ide, and swung his legs onto the table, almost knocking over the coffee he had just put down. Ide shook his head - even in his own home, Matsuda was a disaster waiting to happen. Sometimes the fact that he lived alone worried his fellow officers, who were convinced he'd do himself a serious injury someday and have no way of getting help.

After a stretching period of silence, during which Ide kept glancing at Matsuda and Matsuda kept glancing anywhere but at Ide, Matsuda spoke.

"So you're here to babysit me."

"I'm here to make sure you're okay."

"Dammit, Ide!" he exclaimed, getting suddenly to his feet. "You guys have been treating me with kid gloves since I - since the Kira case finished. You think I haven't noticed? Even _Aizawa_ has

stopped yelling at me! I'm _fine_, why doesn't anyone understand that?"

Ide stood up, squaring up to the other man. "Yeah? You're fine?" he said, raising his voice too. "That's why you've been putting in more hours than _anyone else on the force_, working nights, and no one's seen you eat, let alone have anything resembling a social life-"

"A _social life?_ Christ, Ide, everything that's happened you think I ever want to go back into that mess?"

"Then you're clearly _not fine_, you moron!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Matsuda was bellowing now, and Ide wondered, for a second, what his neighbours would make of all this. "Matsuda the moron, that's all I've ever been! I finally start acting like the rest of you guys, working hard, growing up, and it means something's wrong!"

"No, Matsuda, seeing you waste away into nothing from not eating and not sleeping, _that__'__s_ what means something's wrong! You need to wake up to that!" He punctuated his last remark by pushing Matsuda's shoulder, almost without thinking.

Matsuda hit him. A messy punch, that had he been prepared for it Ide would barely have noticed, but it was enough. It connected with the side of Ide's head, and in response, Ide barrelled into Matsuda, knocking him to the floor. Matsuda swung his arms round as he fell, trying to make contact with the other man. Ide pushed his arms away and rolled off him, springing to his feet as Matsuda got up and swung another punch at him. Ide ducked, just as someone knocked the door.

The two men froze, staring at the door. The knocking came again, a little more insistent. Matsuda moved forward and opened the door. Ide couldn't see who it was, but they said something to Matsuda, who mumbled an apology and bowed, saying they'd keep it down. After the person had left, Masuda turned back to Ide, avoiding his gaze.

"The lady next door," he mumbled. "Said we were being loud."

"No shit."

"…I'm sorry I hit you and everything."

Ide slumped back onto the couch. "Don't be. I was out of line. I'm sorry."

"No, I was being stupid, I'm sorry."

"…Let's stop apologising or we'll be here all night."

Matsuda laughed awkwardly, and settled back into his seat. He still wasn't looking at Ide.

"Hey, Matsuda, you know when you shot Light?"

The man next to him stiffened bodily, darting Ide a quick, alarmed glance. Ide had been right -

this was very definitely an area he didn't want to go into.

"Well, I know what it did to you, but looking back on it, it probably saved all our lives, so thanks."

"I - you're welcome?" Matsuda seemed surprised, and the thought crossed Ide's mind that he had expected Ide to yell at him again. His stomach knotted unpleasantly.

Silence descended again, during which Matsuda appeared to be fighting an inner battle. Eventually, one side won out, and he said, so quietly it was almost inaudible, "I dream about it."

"You want to talk about it?"

Matsuda looked across at him. The expression on his face was half frightened, and half relieved. "Yeah," he said. "I'll just…go and make more coffee."

As Matsuda moved away, Ide released a breath and rubbed the side of his head. Neither of them wanted to bring this up. But someone had to.

He would make Matsuda okay.

The night wore on. The coffee was joined by a mostly-stale cake from the back of Matsuda's cupboard, which Ide politely refused, as the knots Matsuda had been tying himself into over the past few weeks were slowly untied.

At around 1am, Matsuda leaned back into the sofa and said, "I keep wondering, what if he hadn't found the Death Note? Would he still have ended up, well, like he did?"

Ide shook his head. "I couldn't say. But, I'll say this much, I can't imagine him going looking for a way to do that kind of thing. It just…happened."

Matsuda took this in, and nodded slowly. "I spent so much time with him, I can't believe I didn't _see_…I can't believe I was so _stupid_…"

"I believe it," Ide said, and at Matsuda's hurt look, added, "Light was a good actor, and you liked him. You trusted him. Why would you go looking for ways of proving him a liar?"

"I'm still an idiot."

"Yeah, you are. But that's why we like you." He patted Matsuda on the shoulder. "I know this kind of thing isn't pleasant. Isn't easy. But we're all here for you when you need us." He chuckled. "After what we've all gone through, I don't think there's any way we couldn't be."

At last, Matsuda smiled. "Thanks, Ide."


	13. Mistakes

Disclaimer: I don't even own a car. Or a driver's license. I especially don't own Death Note.

Note: _This story officially has more reviews than chapters at this point in time and I am going to celebrate this insignificant fact to an embarrassing degree_.

Incidentally, if anyone's looking for a semi-cute semi-serious fic looking at Matsuda after Yellow Box, Dattebayo's Girl, who through her reviews of this fic has finally provided me with someone to rave about Death Note to, has just updated a lovely little piece called 'His Fallen Idol'. I'll plug other good Matsu fics here as I find them cos idk there seem to be so few of the guy about. We should make a C2 community!

x

**Mistakes**

**Prompt: 04. Legend**

Everyone, it seemed, had wordlessly agreed that it should not have been the Chief who died.

Everyone knew the Chief was easily the strongest and best among them. All of them were more than aware of how strongly he believed in what they were doing - how strongly he believed in everything they had ever done - and all of them knew how much he supported them when they needed it most.

Nobody, not even Light, knew this better than Matsuda.

Everyone mourned the death of a man who had been good and strong and more honest than all of them. Matsuda mourned the death of a man he had hailed as a legend, and who he had put his trust and faith in whenever the world came close to caving in around him. He mourned him silently and quietly, because this was not his grief, and it was his fault.

It was not his grief because he was not Deputy Director Soichiro's son. He was not his daughter, or his wife, or any member of his family. He was just a guy the Chief had worked with. The grief belonged to the people who had loved him and lost him, and Matsuda pledged to honour the Chief's memory by devoting himself as keenly to the Chief's son as he had to the man himself.

And it was his fault because he was the one who should have made the trade for the eyes.

Then, maybe, _he _could have been the one who went into the room with Mello, and who got shot, and who died in a hospital bed drowning in the drone of monitors.

At least he would have been able to do that. He could have died for this case, even if he couldn't do much living for it.

But he hadn't been the one to make the trade. Matsuda survived, continuing to bumble his way through the investigation and slow everyone down, while the Chief was edged aside into the realms of memory and reminiscence. And Matsuda was the one to blame.

But there was still Light. And just because he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, it didn't mean he couldn't help. He could do anything Light needed him to. He could still look after the Chief's son.

And maybe one day he could manage to look at him without thinking it was his fault that Light didn't have a father.

x

We all know Matsuda has a guilt complex. Also, I know Soichiro was the Deputy Director at the time of his death, but Matsuda does refer to him as the Chief sometimes, and corrects himself. So idk it seemed like he'd go back to this at this point. And this is my theory of why Matsuda never doubts Light _in the face of insurmountable evidence._


	14. Guns And Fists

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Quite literally.

Note: Okay I like this one. I kind of woke up (at 3pm, I was up all night reading fanfic) with this fuzzy idea of fists being real against all this malarkey of abstract power and just ran with it. Reviews loved, especially here - want to know what you think.

Also, Kudatsuo-chan, in her infinite awesomeness, has started a Matsuda community! It's called Matsu-tan and I would recommend checking it out. I don't know what the protocol is for getting stuff added to them, so idk, if you find a good Matsu fic, tell her or whatever? My knowledge of this site's institutions is pathetic. I just write stories and patiently hope for people to like it.

x

**Guns and Fists**

**Prompt: 18. Weapon**

When Matsuda fights, he has two choices: guns or fists.

He is better with a gun, but he knows that if push come to the shove he could _probably_ hold out in a hand to hand fight well enough to not make a complete ass of himself, or get killed.

He also knows that if someone told him to make use of one of the weapons he's seen wielded recently, he wouldn't have a clue where to begin.

A gun is something you can wrap your hand around, all cool, smooth metal and the loaded compression of bullets. Fist fights are the same - you can feel your fingers curling, clenched, and smarting after you make contact. When it comes to things that are solid, fixed, Matsuda knows where he stands, he can wrap his hands around them and use them, because it doesn't take a genius to work out how to pull a trigger.

But when it comes to operating on the planes of reality that deal in the abstract and the obscure, Matsuda finds himself consistently at a loss. He cannot manipulate, he cannot pressure, he cannot wield the forces of fate and Heaven at his discretion, as he has seen done. He has seen Light try to kill with a pen stroke and he has seen Near turn a world on its head through a mix of duplicity and reason.

He knows what intelligence and estimation can do, in the hands of a pale boy who's never been outside, and in the hands of a fallen angel. He's seen children fight with things bigger than all of them - children plucked out of reality and thrown straight back in, with a distaste for the corporeal and a passion for the unknowable. He's seen people kill and die this way, and he knows he could never handle even a fraction of that energy with such skill, that he could never aim it, use it, and that all he can do is rage on with his guns and his fists as these bigger forces move around him and throw him into their schemes.

Matsuda is on the outside, brushing against a world that has no use for practicality and reality, and deals simply in deadly things that cannot be touched. He's seen it in action but that's as close as he's going to get, and for once he's glad he's just Matsuda the Idiot, with his gun and his fists, because that's something you can lay your hands on, and he wants nothing to do with this other reality composed of genius and mystery and the sounds of a heart stopping short.


	15. Part Of The Job

Disclaimer: Death Note owned by Obata and Ohba and Shonen Jump. I think. Actually, who does own it? Well, whatever, it's not me, and I'm making no money of this, so you no sue Bialy, yes?

Note: I'm pretty sure this fanfic actually has a soundtrack now because I'm always listening to the same songs when I'm writing.

This chapter is both written for and inspired by Kudatsuo-chan and her request to have Matsuda telling Sachiko and Sayu about Light's death. Hope this is what you were hoping to see!

x

**Part Of The Job**

**Prompt: 43. Cry**

Maybe he wasn't the best one to do this, now that he thought about it.

But it was way too late to turn back now. He was at the door, he was knocking, there were footsteps…

Sachiko's face tightened when she saw him. Matsuda couldn't say he blamed her - the last time he had turned up at her door, with Aizawa at his shoulder, they had informed her that her husband was dead.

She was right to be wary.

"Mrs Yagami…" Matsuda began. Should he bow his head? No, that should be after he told her - shouldn't it? Was he meant to be making eye contact? When they'd told her about the Chief he had just sort of hovered next to Aizawa, but now…

"What has happened, Matsuda?" Sachiko's voice sounded tight and chipped, and he wasn't sure if the hostility was aimed at him or the world in general.

"Mrs Yagami," he said again. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, to have to tell you that - your son -"

Sachiko clapped at hand to her mouth, using the other to steady herself against the doorframe. He could almost hear her inwardly praying _No, no, don__'__t let it be him, too__…_

"Two days ago he was killed in the line of duty, during an attempt to catch Kira. Due to his actions, we have apprehended a suspect, and -" and what good was the bull about his death being for the greater good and that he had sacrificed himself so that others might live, because there was a woman crying in front of him and he knew it was all a lie anyway.

"Mrs Yagami," he said for a third time, and this time he was trying to offer his help, trying to say that if there was anything she needed they'd all be there for her. But the words wouldn't come and he had to look at the floor as her sobbing increased, and somewhere back in the house he heard movement and thought it might be Sayu, and God, someone would have to tell her that her _brother_ was _dead_…

Matsuda didn't want to be here but he knew he had to be the one to do it. He was the only one of them who could keep a straight face when he said how good and how wonderful Light was, because a part of him was still clinging onto the belief. He was propelled by guilt, too, guilt over the part he played in both the deaths, and he didn't know if he'd come here seeking absolution or whatever but he knew he wasn't going to get it.

"Mrs Yagami-"

"Stop saying Mrs Yagami!" she said, suddenly, snapping. "Stop reminding me that I - I don't have a husband -"

She broke down into another bout of tears, choking, her shoulders shaking. Awkwardly, not sure of what he was meant to be doing or if it would be welcomed, but knowing he couldn't just _leave_, Matsuda placed a hand on her shoulder. Gently, he steered her into the house, and sat her down, and began the process of making tea.

Sayu appeared in the doorway, and as thing and wavering as she was, she looked almost see-through. She looked at him blankly and he wondered if she'd understand even if he told her.

He came back every day for a week, at the same time, and after the fifth day, he found that the door wasn't locked anymore at the time he came.

So he kept coming.

x

Note again: I'm aware that they wouldn't call her "Mrs Yagami". However, other than the obvious -san, - chan, etc, I know nothing of that kind of aspect of Japanese culture, so I'm making it English so I don't look like a _complete_ moron.

Also to me the door being unlocked is Sachiko's way of thanking him. I know she doesn't exactly seem to like him but to me, after losing both husband and son, and then this sweet boy of a man who idolised them both is making sure she's okay, so I always like to think that she sort of becomes fond of him and starts to mother him, almost. Leave me my delusions.


	16. Sentiments

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Matsuda or China.

Note: I left the house! And used the opportunity to buy Death Note manga. It's not really a step forward socially, is it. Ah well. I sat on a bench and read manga while my friend read the seven fanfic one shots I had written at 1am that morning.

I know I know I should have written seven Matsuda ficlets instead but idk it was her birthday ages ago and I still hadn't written anything and now she's going to China.

_Don't leave me, Fairy_.

x

**Sentiments**

**Prompt: 19. Feel**

Kiyomi Takada was dead.

Matsuda clenched his fists, as the news broadcast flashed in front of him. Mello - damn him! First the Chief, and now Takada…

The flames curled round the side of the church in a casual, smug manner, as if pleased with what they had accomplished. _At least he__'__s dead now too,_ he thought, and the dark satisfaction he felt at the idea made him reach forward and turn off the TV.

_I can't think about that._

Two more days, and they'd be meeting Near at Yellow Box. The kid could finally satisfy himself that Light was innocent, and they could try making some _real_ progress with the investigation. Just two more days and they'd be through with all the suspicion and stress at the headquarters.

He wasn't sure why everyone was getting so wound up about it, though. Ide and Aizawa had been withdrawing into private conversations more and more since Near had set the date of the meeting, and even Light seemed different - a bit more tense, but there was an edge of something different. Matsuda couldn't work out what it was, but if he'd had to guess, he might have said it was the same kind of feeling he had gotten when thinking about Mello's death.

But then, that wouldn't make sense. Light wasn't like Matsuda. Light cared about people, and actually did the right thing - he thought about things, and helped people, when all Matsuda could do was rush in blindly and say stupid things like they should let Near kill Mello or that Kira was good.

Not long now, though. Two more days, and Aizawa and Ide could stop being so tense around Light, and Mogi would be back, and Light and Misa could be back together…

Everything would be okay after Yellow Box.

x

I know I know it's a horrible update. But I'm exhausted and stuff. I didn't want to not put an update up today, though. Sonar, I wanted to do your Ukita idea, but seeing as how I'm not feeling really up to it I didn't want to put up a substandard chapter for you. But this could have turned out worse I figure. Matsuda's so deluded. And insecure. It's why I love him.


	17. Merciless

Disclaimer: We're at, what, 17 chapters now? And the fact that I still write these stems from some weird compulsion that I can't explain. _Must write disclaimer at all costs. Must__…__cover__…__ass__…_

Note: Wouldn't it be awesome if just once I didn't write a note and actually provided you with the thing you were interested in, the story?

I liiiike Misa. Even though she's a bit obsessed with Light (and could totally do better) she's a great character, I think. Much better than Takada (I hate Takada).

x

**Merciless**

**Prompt: 15. Angel**

"…And tonight's top story: the body of Misa Amane was found this morning at the foot of an electricity tower near Daikoku Wharf."

"_What_?" Matsuda sat up with a jerk, scrambling around for the remote. Failing to find it, he lurched forward to push the volume up manually. On the television, the newsreader gravely shuffled his notes, and continued.

"Amane, 26, appears to have fallen from the tower late last night. Police are currently investigating the incident as a suspected homicide, due to the fact that details surrounding Amane's arrest on suspicion of being the Second Kira recently resurfaced. However, the young model and actress's recent withdrawal from public life means that the idea of suicide is not being ruled out."

Matsuda gaped at the television. The body had been found that morning…the police had issued a statement…how had he not _heard_ about this? Sure, today had been his day off, but Aizawa had been there…Ide had been…wouldn't one of them have _called _him or something? This was Misa-Misa they were talking about!

Running a hand distractedly through his hair, he retrieved his cell phone from his jacket, dialling a number. Ide answered.

"Matsuda? Hey, what's -"

"Why didn't you tell me Misa was dead?!"

"Huh?"

"It's on the news now! How come I'm the last to know? What happened?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. It sounded like Ide had moved away from the phone. There was a rustling of papers being moved and then the distant, bleary sounds of a television.

"Oh my God," said Ide, back on the line. "She's - she's dead."

Matsuda blinked. "You didn't know either?"

"No. And I've been in the office all day…hang on, I'm going to find Aizawa."

Matsuda leaned back, rubbing his eyes, as the line went quiet again. Misa was _dead_. Had she been killed? Pushing her off the tower was a rather cumbersome way of murdering someone, but if they'd wanted to make it look like suicide.

It wasn't suicide.

It couldn't have been suicide.

Misa-Misa would never have -

"_I couldn't live in a world without Light!"_

Oh, God.

Matsuda racked his brains, trying to remember the last time he had spoken to Misa. He'd gone over to her apartment…and…and it had been just a couple of weeks ago, just after Near's drug bust at Yellow Box. And…he had been drinking, and he was depressed, and Misa…

Oh God, oh God, oh, _Christ_…

He'd told her that Light was dead.

"Matsuda?"

Matsuda fumbled for his phone. "Ide?"

"It's Aizawa. I hadn't heard about Misa's death either. I have no idea how - or why - they kept it quiet from us…it might just be a case of information not getting through or no one hearing, but if this was deliberately kept from me I _will_ find out."

"Aizawa," he croaked. "Aizawa - I - back after the 31st, I - I told her - I let it slip that -"

"…What did you say, Matsuda?"

"I told her that - that Light -"

He heard Aizawa draw a sharp breath. "God. Right. Hang on -" Aizawa spoke away from the phone, and Matsuda could hear him telling someone - Ide? - to go downstairs and tell them to start treating it as a suicide. He heard someone respond, heard Aizawa snap something back.

He'd really messed up this time.

"Okay, we're having it dealt with. At least this lets us know what happened a bit more clearly. Seems like after she found out about Light…" he trailed off.

"And she waited for Valentine's Day," Matsuda said, his voice choked. "Aizawa, I -"

"Don't, Matsuda. There's no point now. I have to go deal with this. See you tomorrow."

He hung up, and Matsuda was left sitting on the couch, with horror and guilt struggling with each other inside him.

Dazedly, he turned off his television and staggered into the kitchen. He shakily poured himself a drink, not checking what the label said it was, just reaching to the are he knew contained the

bottles with the largest alcoholic content. He downed it, and poured himself another.

The rest of the night rolled on, filled with whiskey, self-loathing and silence.

x

Wow that one was full of angst, wasn't it? I read - and I'm pretty sure it was in Death Note 13 - that Misa wasn't told about Light's death but "someone - probably Matsuda - let it slip". And yeah Matsuda is just filled with guilt for everything when I write him, isn't he? I think he pretty much blames himself for everything that's gone wrong. Poor Matsu.

Okay just spent ten minutes looking through DN13 and found it: "since those who use the notebook suffer misfortune, someone like Matsuda probably let it slip that Light had died. Misa then fell into depression and committed suicide…something like that."

This one ran on a bit but I don't care because I like it. And yeah, the prompt refers to Misa. The title refers to the Death Note not really letting anyone escape its influence that uses it. And I don't know why I'm explaining my title choices this time rather than any other. I guess I just really really like the idea of this. Which is…weird. I realised how obsessive I am about getting facts that no one cares about correct when I fished out one of my mangas to check the spelling of Daikoku. And it doesn't even _matter_.


	18. Drinking Games

Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I still don't own this stuff. Although, Fairy and I have started developing plans that involve Matsuda, Lockwood from the History Boys, a lot of red string and migration to Japan.

Note: Yeah I agree with Kudatsuo-chan that it's a wonder Matsuda hasn't turned into an alcoholic yet, especially the way this fic is going. So, what with the whiskey appearing in the last chapter and the fact that it's about damn time I cut the guy a break, we move onto…

_The Yamamoto Drinking Episode_.

Dattebayo Girl, I promised the next vaguely humour our or light-hearted one was dedicated to you, and so it is - sorry it took so long for me to scrub all the angst off.

But we'll be going back there soon.

x

**Drinking Games**

**Prompt: 39. Animal**

Afterwards, Yamamoto would never know what had possessed him to make him agree to it. Maybe it was because he thought it would help him feel like less of an outsider when it came to working with this close-knit group, or maybe it was because Matsuda still felt like his superior.

It didn't change the fact that it was a horrible, horrible idea.

They had been out for two hours, and Matsuda was - there was no other way to describe it - smashed. A couple of minutes ago he had started singing, though for the life of him Yamamoto couldn't work out a tune. The older man staggered away from the edge of the pavement, and into another bar.

"Another one?" Yamamoto asked, his voice stretched thin, as he wobbled after him. He had realised too late that he was going to have to be the mature one that evening, when he had already had more than enough to drink.

"Ben sure!" Matsuda cried out, in what Yamamoto was pretty sure was an attempt at French.

Yamamoto sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head a little. So far they had been thrown out of three places (Matsuda had tried to show his police badge to one of the bouncers, only to remember he had left it at home. Yamamoto found himself very glad of this fact) and Matsuda had come very close to removing several articles of clothing. Yamamoto was also relatively certain that he had seen the detective hitting on a teenage boy.

He suddenly came to his senses, and realised that he was _outside _the bar, and Matsuda was _inside_ the bar. This was not good. Yamamoto hurried inside, desperate to catch Matsuda before he tried anything else.

It was too late.

The detective was mostly naked, but for his tie and his underwear. Yamamoto wasn't sure how he'd gotten his clothes off so quickly, until he noticed the group of young women hooting at him and spurring him on, holding what appeared to be his discarded garments.

Matsuda was also standing on a table.

Just as the older man began to dance something that looked suspiciously like Caramelldansen, one of the women reached up and gave Matsuda's boxers a tug. With a stroke of bad luck that Yamamoto was sure could only have happened to him, a police officer chose that precise

moment to stick his head inside the bar to see if there was any trouble.

Yamamoto spent the rest of the night trying to argue with the officer that the charge of indecent exposure wasn't exactly fair, as Matsuda technically hadn't been the one to _remove_ the

underwear. Meanwhile, Matsuda was unconscious in a holding cell, although probably still very drunk.

Eventually, through a mix of begging and calling in Aizawa's influence, Matsuda was released, with no charges. Yamamoto stumbled home - to bed, to peace, to safety - and collapsed in a heap on the couch, thanking whatever God there was that it was finally over.

The next time Matsuda asked him to go drinking, he politely declined.

x

Yes I know I can't write humour and I shouldn't try. Therefore there wont be very many more overt attempts at 'funny' in this story, but I really wanted to do this. I might try rewriting it at a later point because I kind of hate this chapter and feel bad for posting it. Now I'm going to return to angst and self-torture because _that is where I am in my element_.

I thought about trying to explain some of the stuff in this chapter (like the 'ben sure') but I figured it might be better if we just forget it ever happened.


	19. Penance

Disclaimer: You know I don't own it, I know I don't own it.

Note: I'm sorry because I think this is the second bad update in one day. Last chapter was totally my fault as I can't write humour. This is my brother's fault. He's hyperactive and sitting on my landing as I am writing this saying, and I quote, "sprinkles are pretty". Try writing a sentimental, sweet chapter when someone keeps telling you he needs "more fizzy sticks because his masterpiece is incomplete".

x

**Penance**

**Prompt: 42. Warmth**

It was September. The remnants of summer's warmth were still acting as a shield against the oncoming bite of winter, and the leaves on the trees were just starting to crackle into brown, just beginning to drift to the ground.

Aizawa and the others still let him come here because they knew he wouldn't ever come _here_ when he was drunk, like he had with Misa, and when it came to _them_ he wouldn't let anything slip, like the fact that Light was Kira. So every week, almost religiously, he would visit, spending an hour or so chatting, helping to clear up around the house, and doing anything he could think of to make the lives of Sachiko and Sayu Yagami a little easier.

Today, Sachiko had actually asked _him_ to look after Sayu. So here we was, out behind their house where the sun was filtering through the leaves and branches to leave an idle pattern of shadows on the ground.

Sayu still couldn't walk, and she still didn't respond much beyond a shy smile and the occasional answer to a question or utterance of a name. So Matsuda pushed her in her wheelchair, talking all the while to fill up the silence, chattering about things Aizawa had said or stuff he had heard on the news. She seemed to enjoy being out in the light breeze and the autumn sun, as much as Sayu seemed to enjoy anything these days.

She didn't say anything for the thirty or so minutes Matsuda walked round with her, pausing occasionally to give himself a break and let her look at the scenery. When his time with her was up, he wheeled her back to the house. Sachiko was just returning from shopping, and she thanked him, and bid him farewell.

Every now and again, Sachiko would ask him the same thing, and he'd accept, picking up the one-sided conversation with wherever he had left off last time. He would return to the house to help with washing whatever dishes were unwashed, or tidying whatever needed tidying. He was sure that Sachiko didn't mind him coming round so much - he thought he could see it the odd, fond look she would cast him when he was busy searching for the washing up liquid, and she though he wouldn't notice.

The fifth time he took Sayu out for a 'walk', and he was halfway through explaining the various ways in which his microwave kept breaking, she reached a hand up and wrapped it round his. She looked up at him, her eyes calm, clear, and just a little bit more normal than usually. She smiled gently, and squeezed his hand.

Every time he visited, Matsuda felt his guilt lessen, just a little.

x

I guess you could argue that it wouldn't help him much, seeing Say and Sachiko all the time, but to me, I see him as going there to punish himself, sort of, to try to help them to 'atone' or whatever, but every time Sachiko is nice to him or Sayu acknowledges his existence it makes him feel better.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, I really should know better than to try and write when my brother is managing to talk without breathing and _not leaving me alone_. I might reupdate. I'm sorry. I.O.U. better fic.

Oh God he just downed _ten pixie sticks_.


	20. Bachelors

Disclaimer: Bialy does not own. Bialy has discovered that Soichiro, Takada and Mogi share the same birthday. _Freaky no?_

Note: Today we add another song to the soundtrack of this fanfic. Soon, it will be an album. And I shall burn it to a CD and title it Inferiority Complex and leave it lying around and everyone in my family will be confused. _Genius_.

Lol I really like Ide, you know. I totally want to see him and Matsuda move in together (as roomies, not a pairing - not that I'm averse to that XD) and just be these two loser bachelors eating instant noodles and microwave meals. Because in my head they're poor and can't keep up the rent. Or buy real food.

x

**Bachelors**

**Prompt: 25. Confession**

"Oh, Ide, you really have never had a great romance, have you?"

"_Again_ with this, Matsuda?! Can't you pay attention to the case for once?"

Aizawa glanced over at them as he rose to his feet, ready to set out and deal with the aftermath of Light and Takada's rendezvous. "Like you can talk," he grumbled. He'd spend the last few hours desperately trying to catch what was being said over Ide and Matsuda's bickering.

"It's relevant! It's the reason you keep thinking everything is suspicious. They're two young people in love, childhood sweethearts -" Matsuda said, matter-of-factly.

Ide snorted. "They met in college, that hardly qualifies them as 'childhood sweethearts'. And anyway, how would _you_ know if they were in love?" he asked, poking a finger in the younger man's direction.

Matsuda waved a hand dismissively. "Because I know these things. It's something _you_ wouldn't understand…what with your lack of romantic skills and everything."

"I - my _what_? Matsuda, how would you know if I -"

"Because it's obvious!" Matsuda said with a grin. "Ide, you may have had relationships - maybe - but even _you_ admitted they weren't much when it came to romance!"

Ide rubbed a hand across his face. "You keep bringing up this point and I _really _don't understand what you're trying to prove with it."

Matsuda sighed. "I suppose you wouldn't."

"Let me guess. Because I've never had a great romance?"

Matsuda nodded smugly.

It was Ide's turn to sigh. He slumped back in his chair. Arguing with Matsuda was exhausting. "What makes you the authority on all this, anyway?"

"Huh?"

Matsuda's sudden lack of verbosity on the subject perked Ide's interest. He turned to the other man suspiciously. "Have _you_ ever had a great romance?"

"What? I - _of course_ I -" Matsuda opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no more words came out.

Ide pointed a finger at him dramatically. "You _haven__'__t_! Have you even ever had a steady girlfriend? And you've been giving _me_ a hard time!"

Matsuda had gone bright red. "We should really be getting back to the Kira case. Let's look over all the notes Aizawa made tonight, see if we find anything. Hey, look, apparently Takada said -"

"Oh no, Matsuda, you're not getting off that easily," Ide said gleefully, spinning round, making sure to keep Matsuda in his sights. "I've got about four years of insults to make up for."

"S -shut up Ide!" Matsuda was avoiding looking at him, looking, if possible, even more red than before.

Ide laughed and slung an arm round his shoulders. "I'm just kidding! Hey, it hardly matters, does it? I just think it's funny that _all this time_ you've been going on…" He punched Matsuda playfully on the shoulder. "It's actually nice to know I'm not the only one in luckless-in-love boat!"

"Hey, I'm not -"

"Yes you are, Matsuda, and you know it."

"…Well, I guess..."

Ide grinned. "I know. Hey, Aizawa won't be back for a bit, want a quick game of cards?"

"Sure," said Matsuda, glancing at Ide as he swung his chair over to the table. He grinned back at the other man, still embarrassed, but grateful for his quick change of subject. "What do you want

to play?"

"Well, we _could _play Blackjack…but then, you've never had a great romance, Matsuda…" Ide sighed, shuffling the pack of cards he had produced from his jacket.

"Wait, what does that have to do with anything?!" Matsuda stared at him blankly, mouth open in confusion.

"_Now_ you know how _I_ felt," Ide said smugly, and began to deal.

x

Three non-angst chapters in a row? _What could it all mean_? Aw this idea was really cute in my head, I hope it translated well to writing. Ide wouldn't harp on at Matsuda the way Matsuda does to him and we all know Matsu's too much of a dorky clutz to have had the kind of 'great romance' he's always going on about.

By the way, I kind of realised that I haven't mentioned L much yet. Is anyone missing him, or hoping he'll turn up? I have a couple of ideas involving him and I can hurry them up if there are any L fan girls reading.


	21. Absence

Disclaimer: Death Note isn't mine, it's Ohba and Obata's.

Note: I deliberately tried to not go too much into emotion here. Well, detail on the emotion. I tried to make it kind of matter-of-fact, I don't know if it worked. I'd done a couple with action and conversation recently and now we need to go back to the angsty snapshots. Bialy is hoooome, babies. -hugs angst fics- Also I thought about it and I don't think there would be other people there. They'd have kept it quite quiet I think. I could be wrong. Ah well.

x

**Absence**

**Prompt: 23. Mourn**

It was not raining, whatever the people gathered there may have expected. It was not bright or particularly cloudy. The weather did not match or counter the sentiment of the occasion.

It was simply absent.

Those that had gathered were too few, and too many. Aizawa. Ide. Mogi. Sachiko and Sayu. Matsuda. Too few for a funeral.

Too many, too many wrong, wrong people paying their respects to Kira.

A priest spoke generic platitudes and Matsuda thought vaguely that Light wouldn't really have wanted a funeral under the God he had rejected in favour of himself. Across the open scar in the earth stood a grieving mother, but she was not crying. She stood straight and dignified, determined to pay this last respect to her son. Sayu watched the grave quietly. Matsuda thought that it was unlikely that she knew where she was.

Misa should have been here. But they had been forbidden to tell her, for fear of what she might do to herself.

Sachiko had hated the bullet wounds most. She cried over how they disfigured his beautiful body in a kind of trivial, detached way, and no one could watch this woman as she stood in front of her dead son. She begged to know who had shot him, and they told her 'Kira' and Matsuda had to lock himself in a bathroom stall until he was done throwing up.

The funeral drew to a close and they parted ways. There was no mingling after the fact, no fond recollection of memories. There was silence, and the absence of weather.


	22. Introductions

Disclaimer: If I owned Death Note, I would _totally_ still be writing fanfic for it instead of working on getting a volume based entirely on Matsuda's life out. Really.

Note: Look, it's L! This takes place when they first meet him and he's all like "hey, come talk to me in private so I can make sure you're not trying to kill me and stuff". I don't really know what the content of these interviews would have been because I haven't really thought about L's character much. But Matsuda would have fumbled his way through his, you just know it. Anything that I haven't conveyed in writing and L just seems to _magically_ know…well, this time I have an excuse - I'm not a bad writer, L's a genius!

God it's 5am and _I should sleep and stop writing this_.

x

**Introductions**

**Prompt: 32. Crystal**

The door to the adjacent room creaked open for the third time, and Mogi emerged.

Matsuda got to his feet. Might as well go next. He swallowed nervously and nodded to Mogi as they passed each other, and tentatively entered the second room.

L - Ryuzaki - was perched in his strange crouching position near the table in the centre of the room. Matsuda made his way forward and moved to sit down opposite him, then stopped, not sure if he was meant to.

L looked up at him with wide, dark rimmed eyes. "Please, sit," he said, in a neutral tone.

Matsuda sat.

"Your name is Matsuda, correct?"

Matsuda nodded.

"You've decided to risk your life, by keeping working on this case."

Matsuda nodded again.

"You can speak, if you like."

_God, I haven't been saying anything! What if he thinks that's suspicious? What if he thinks I'm Kira?! No. He's L. He's not stupid, he's not going to think that…oh God, I'm still not saying _

_anything! I must be making myself look really really suspicious…oh man, even if he doesn't think I'm Kira, he's going to think I'm a total idiot…_

"Um…Matsuda-san?" L peered at him with those eerily innocent eyes.

"S-sorry," Matsuda stuttered. "I'm - I'm - kind of nervous I guess. I mean you're L - I mean, Ryuzaki - and you're this great detective and I'm getting to _meet_ you and -" _Great, now I sound like a fan boy._

L continued to stare at him. "How old are you, Matsuda-san?"

"I'm - um - I'm twenty-five."

"That's quite young."

"Ukita's only a year older than me!" Matsuda protested. "I'm not too young to be doing this! I'm serious about it!" He didn't realise until a few moments after that he had clenched his fists.

"I believe you, Matsuda-san. I am grateful to you for deciding to stay on this case."

"Um…okay then. Sorry."

"There is no need to apologise."

"…Okay." Matsuda swallowed, still nervous.

L watched him in silence for a few more moments. Seconds stretched on, and after what seemed to Matsuda like at least half an hour, he spoke again.

"Thank you, Matsuda-san. Please ask the next person to come in to see me."

Matsuda nodded, stammered an awkward thank you (_thank you for what?!_), and left. Walking backwards.

As he watched the man leave, L concluded several things: Matsuda was the youngest member of this group, he was highly excitable, he was under-confident, and he was not Kira. He appeared to lack the foresight to have kept himself concealed this long.

Besides, the man was pretty clearly an idiot.

But he seemed determined. And determination could be turned into loyalty, which certainly had its place in this investigation.

A man with a large head of hair sat in front of him. "I've already told you my name's Aizawa, so no harm in repeating it," he said.

L stared up at him, and gave a small smile. "Hello, Aizawa-san."

x

Two points to make: Even though this is third person narrative looking through Matsuda's eyes (mostly), I referred to him as L instead of Ryuzaki because this is just after they meet him, before they're used to calling him Ryuzaki. And I know I said I wasn't going to use any of the Japanese affixes, but L's use of them is very characteristic, and I had no idea how else to prove that I had actually read the manga and been introduced to L's character. Because I sure as hell can't write his character well.

The truth behind his absence in this story is coming out. It is not because he has no influence on Matsuda. It is because Bialy is retarded at writing introverted geniuses. She prefers slightly retarded detectives.

And the prompt is Crystal because Matsuda's personality is crystal clear to anyone who talks to him (lol). He couldn't fake it if he tried. Even as Taro Matsui he's just Matsuda with a different name and job.


	23. Night Shift

Disclaimer: Bialy don't own it.

Note: _MOAR L_? Note how he sits quietly and watches a monitor as Bialy tries to hide how she flails hopelessly when it comes to writing him.

I think Matsuda honestly believes helping to monitor the three of them in this chapter is going to help get them released quicker. He wants to help but has no idea how. Bless.

Incidentally (shameless plugging time) I wrote a Sayu/Matsu fic that shouldn't take too long to read, if you're interested. It's called Something Like Grace.

x

**Night Shift**

**Prompt: 44. Work**

It had been a whole week since Light and the Chief had demanded to be incarcerated. Watching them was difficult - the Chief, pacing and anxious; Light, stone-still and fixated; and Misa, writhing, begging to be released.

Matsuda took more night shifts than anyone.

Ryuzaki had asked that one of them stay up every night with him, just in case something were to happen to him - and then, at least, the prisoners and Yagami-san would still be monitored.

He always referred to them like that. "The prisoners and Yagami-san".

It couldn't be right to keep them bound up like this, could it? Well, the Chief wasn't bound…and - and Light had volunteered, but Misa Amane…The girl was clearly terrified.

Once, Matsuda had tried to imagine how he'd have felt if he'd been grabbed off the street, bound, blindfolded and locked away in a dark room.

He hadn't tried to imagine it again.

So he worked night after night, sitting with the silent Ryuzaki. They monitored, they deleted excess tapes, Ryuzaki ate cake and Matsuda drank coffe, and they sat, watching three people who were, to all intents and purposes, at their mercy. At Ryuzaki's mercy.

Matsuda didn't count much on Ryuzaki's sense of mercy.


	24. Extinguished

Disclaimer: If I said "I secretly own Death Note", would anybody _actually _believe me?

Note: Idea goes to Sonar, who suggested something about Ukita and Matsuda thinking about his death. If you've liked any of the task force chapters in this thing, Sonar is pretty much the one you need to thank. Because as much as I love the taskforce, I suck at conceiving ideas for them. And Sonar doesn't. Her ideas made chapters and gave me inspirations and…thank you Sonar :D

x

**Extinguished**

**Prompt: 28. Will**

Ukita was dead and they couldn't even go to his funeral.

"It would be absurd for the few people tackling Kira to gather together in such a predictable location," L had told them calmly.

"Ukita is _dead_!" Aizawa had yelled, and L had regarded him placidly.

"If you wish to die, Mr Aizawa, please be my guest. But the Second Kira will almost certainly be watching that funeral. He will almost certainly expect other people involved in the Kira investigation be there. He will almost certainly attempt to kill them."

Aizawa had gritted his teeth and clenched his teeth and realised that he wasn't able to do anything.

The Kira case had slowly been shutting them away from the outside world for a while. And now, it wasn't so slow.

Matsuda sighed and rolled one of Ukita's left-over cigarettes around the table. _Ukita was dead_. Ukita had been a year older than him and _way_ smarter. _If Ukita can be killed, then I -_

Ukita hadn't treated him like an idiot. Even though he'd been friends with Aizawa and didn't need to spend time talking to Matsuda outside the confines of the investigation, he had. They'd even hung out a few times, back before they stopped having time to do anything but eat, sleep and hunt Kira.

He remembered asking Ukita what he thought about the case one time, in a café.

"He's a murderer," Ukita had said simply. "Maybe it's good that so many criminals are dying and maybe it's not. It's not my job to work that out. It's my job to catch murderers. And the case is going to be tough…" he had trailed off, frowning at his cigarette, then looked up, grinning, "…but that just makes it all the more important that we don't give up!"

Ukita hadn't thought twice about running out to try and stop the Sakura TV broadcast. And he'd died.

Was that where all his determination had gotten him? To a funeral that hid friends couldn't even attend?

Matsuda shook his head. No. Ukita had been a good cop. And he was right…if Kira was going to kill innocent people like that, Kira _was_ a murderer, no matter what good came of him killing criminals.

They had to catch Kira. Matsuda wasn't going to quit now.

None of them were.


	25. Breach

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't own, but I DO own a copy of Another Note, and it's awesome, and Misora is going to find her way in here somewhere. Because she's pure kick ass. Liked her in the manga, liked her in the novel. Penbar got skills.

Note: This has been an unusually long period in between updates, hasn't it? It is because I have hit a slight snag. I have plenty of ideas left, but I want some better ones. I'm going to go through all my mangas again to try to find some proper plot points I can develop, rather than prancing around Matsuda's psyche like a freaking fairy. Not that there's much wrong with that - it's fun to write - but there's only so many chapters of that I can put up before I feel guilty about not having something more substantial.

Anyway, here's an update until I can think of something better.

x

**Breach**

**Prompt: 45. Baby**

Kidnapped. The Chief's daughter, grabbed by someone she didn't know, bundled in a truck, a plane, a cellar…

It was all conjecture, of course. If he'd had any idea of how the kidnapping had happened or where Sayu was now, Matsuda would have been sorely tempted to go chasing after them himself.

It wasn't just the Chief, though, it was Light - he'd spoken calmly when they were informed of what had happened by the kidnappers, thought logically, tried to construct a plan. Matsuda thought that maybe he knew better. Even if he wasn't showing it now, back when they had been at the Chief's house, he had _definitely_ noticed a fondness in Light's eyes when he looked at his little sister.

That is, when he hadn't been noticing the little sister herself.

God, she'd gotten beautiful.

And the thoughts of what might happen to her, what the kind of thugs who might be behind this could decide to do with that beauty…

Matsuda shuddered. He'd rather have Kira take over the world than have the Chief go through that.

And maybe that would be the way things ended up going.


	26. Small Miracles

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: Eeerp. This takes place before the Sayu and Matsu one a few chapters back. Because he

had to get Sachiko to stop hating him somehow.

It might just be me but I totally see him as slotting into the Yagami family after everything's said and done. Sachiko needs someone to mother after all, and Light's dead and Sayu's out of it, so idk in my head she latches onto Matsuda. I guess she might be just glad that someone else still seems to care about her family (what's left of it) and hasn't just moved on now Soichiro and Light are gone.

x

**Small Miracles**

**Prompt: 22. Rules**

Matsuda hasn't been okay since Yellow Box. Sure, he's fixed himself up and a combination of Ide's patience, Aizawa's guidance and Mogi's support has put him back on the tracks, but he still wakes up scrambling for his gun and fights the urge to draw his gun when he sees someone writing things down.

The part of him that isn't okay is the same one that forces him to go to Light's grave. He isn't sure if it's some perverse desire to remind himself of what he did, or if it's a spark of rationality inside the mire that fighting its way out, trying to make him see sense, see the light, come back to reality. He doesn't know, and he doesn't care. He lays simple flowers and says a few words to an empty graveyard, and turns and leaves. Every odd month, on the 28th. It's a routine, a set of unwritten rules, and he does not know if he is capable of changing it.

That same part of him makes him buy flowers for Sachiko on her birthday, because Sayu's still half-dead and no one else is going to. He thinks this really might be more to do with some masochistic urge he's not admitting to, because Sachiko doesn't like him and she never has. Matsuda used to feel depressed by this, but when he remembered how thoroughly 'NPA' he looks to her, and how thoroughly the NPA ripped her life apart, he decides that he doesn't really blame her.

But he brings her flowers anyway, and he picks up a box of chocolates, but doesn't know if she likes them or is allergic to anything inside. He remembers she might be allergic to the flowers, too, but they're already sitting in the back of his car now, so he might as well, even if it breaks his rules.

She answers the door, takes in the flowers, his ruffled hair and his awkward expression with one dismissive glance, and tells him Sayu is at the hospital today. He pushes the words out too quickly when he tells her the flowers are for her, and he's nervous, but he adds a 'happy birthday' just in time. Her face doesn't change but she takes them from him and tells him to come inside. As she puts them in water, she pauses a moment to sniff them, and her demeanour changes - imperceptibly, but definitely, like a decimal point being shifted. When she turns to face him again her face is still blank, but her hostility has faded.

After that she always greets him by name rather than rank, asks him how he likes his coffee, and stops glaring at him from the sink as he rattles on to Sayu about the latest movies. Matsuda is aware that she probably still doesn't like him, but it's silent acknowledgement that the dead men mattered to him, too, and that they both have their reasons for wanting to fix what's left of her family.

Overtly, nothing changes. But in the odd, fond glance, and in curves of the lip that almost constitute a smile, Matsuda begins to feel as if he's starting to belong.


	27. Margins

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or a sense of decorum.

Note: I am really tired. And I genuinely don't know where this came from. I wrote the sentence 'Touta Matsuda was dying'. And here it comes.

x

**Margins**

**Prompt: 33. Bed**

Touta Matsuda was dying.

There were bullets in places there shouldn't be, and not that bullets should ever be anywhere in the body, but when they were in _these_ places…

And it was almost a miracle that he hadn't died from that fall.

Even if it was going to play its part in killing him afterwards.

Touta Matsuda was in hospital, and he had five visitors.

Hideki Ide visited the most often, sometimes accompanied by a man he referred to as 'Yamamoto'. Once, Yamamoto visited on his own, and apologised to Matsuda's motionless body.

Shuichi Aizawa and Kanzo Mogi always visited at the same time, every other day, meeting each other in the hall before entering the room. Unlike Ide, they did not talk to the comatose detective, they regarded him silently, spoke to the doctors, and left.

Everyone said that Touta Matsuda was dying.

Nobody could say who the fifth visitors was, but everyone knew that he was there. The minor gaggle of what might only be described as body guards would appear at Matsuda's door, and then they would leave. No one saw the person inside. One of the nurses, who was stationed by the door most of the time, claimed he was invisible.

She was mostly right.

Touta Matsuda was transferred to another hospital when the doctors said it was too dangerous to move his body.

They didn't even know how they were managing to keep him alive, let alone how they were going to wake him up. Most of them had given up on this man who still looked like a boy, with his dark hair flopped over his face, half-obscuring tubes and wires.

Ide came to visit and found that his friend was not there. First he asked, then he demanded, and then he raged, but no one could tell him anything except one day, the invisible visitor and his bodyguards had turned up, and then Matsuda had been transferred.

The last they had heard he was not dead yet.

Ide appeared not to care that there were no details on the invisible visitor. Apparently, he already knew who it was. He pulled out a cell phone and shouted something down the line, pacing back and forth as a nurse hurried after him, trying to get him to calm down. The man on the phone said something, and Ide yelled back that it was that kid's fault Matsuda was in this state in the first place, so who the hell did he think he was to move him to another hospital?

Touta Matsuda was in England, and he was still dying.

More precisely, he was in an orphanage in Winchester. A doctor who worked in London, who had been close to creating a cure for the common cold, was called away from his work by a voice from his computer. The doctor followed the instructions the voice gave him, and found himself outside the building he had grown up in.

By the time Ide and Aizawa decided they should check Wammy's House, Matsuda was no longer dying.

Touta Matsuda was awake.

If his recovery had occurred at any hospital on the globe, it might have been called a miracle. Matsuda might have converted to some religion and sworn off alcohol for good. But when you wake up in a building full of geniuses you know better than to think you were saved by some divine intervention, and you know that logic and science have swooped in to salvage your ass.

Upon finding that he was awake, a man in a white coat informed him he should be dead. When he was told of the extent of his injuries, Matsuda was inclined to agree. He closed his eyes briefly, and remembered redness, and screaming, and movement, and things going so, so wrong. He remembered a woman - a hostage - and he remembered her brains painting the wall an ugly red. He remembered moving forward without logic or thought, and he remembers a gun turned on him, and he remembered tumbling and falling and blackness.

When he woke up, he was still alive.

Days later, Aizawa and Ide found him, and by then he had remembered how to speak, if not quite how to walk. The doctor told him he was quite glad they didn't shoot him in the head, because no matter how brilliant he was he couldn't cure brain damage yet.

After some weeks he is fit to be discharged, and his miracle is finished, and a few weeks after that he goes to back to work.

The next time they work with L, Touta Matsuda is more friendly, more helpful, and twice as dedicated, and L takes more precautions for their safety.

x

Note: For a second there I was really going to write a death chapter. But. I suck like that. I get a perfect, tearful idea and I know I can write it, and then I give it a happy ending. Because I can't quite bring myself to write 'realism' when it's so goddamn depressing. The world is in enough of a state without the fiction making me want to top myself too.

"I expect that Yossarian, now seventy, must at some point die. But it will not be by my hand." Joseph Heller was a legend. Matsuda's not mine and I don't intend to kill him.

My theory is that Near is more human than he seems to be. The chocolate bar that appears in the last scene he's in proves that. And if he were responsible for Matsuda getting hurt, even though he probably doesn't like the guy, he'd remember that it was, technically, Matsuda who saved his life, and call in a favour or two. And Wammy's is a secure place for Near to go to.


	28. Strays

Disclaimer: I own nothing here.

Note: There's really no point to this one other than I have randomly decided to give Matsuda a dog. The dog will feature in the next chapter as a follow-up, and then erratically whenever I have a chapter that takes place (chronologically) after this one, and it seems relevant.

But let's be honest there's nothing really connecting these things apart from characters and the fact that they're under the same fanfic title.

Kudatsuo-chan: this is the best I could do about him getting drunk in a church without it turning into a 2000 word full fic. Which I will also keep writing. Probably.

No I don't know why a Japanese store would play 'When You Were Young' by the Killers at Christmas. I have no logic.

x

**Strays**

**Prompt: 50. Snuggle**

"…_He doesn't look a thing like Jesus but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young…"_

The noise drifts out of some shop that's open late, and Matsuda isn't sure why it's not closed, until he remembers it's nearly Christmas. He thinks this might explain why _he__'__s_ out so late, and why he's justified getting drunk anywhere but the couch in his apartment.

Maybe it doesn't. He's not really sure.

He's pretty sure that he's nowhere near his apartment now, though, and equally sure that he should try making his way back there. But it turns out he's too drunk and it's too cold, so he winds up trying all the doors of empty-looking buildings, a fit of fuzzy logic telling him that he should get inside for the night, but neglecting to tell him this might be breaking and entering. When he tries a pair of doors that are twice his height and ornate, he gets lucky, and they creak open.

All Matsuda can think about is how a year ago he'd been helping Misa prepare for Christmas, feeling sick about helping her pick out a present for Light but remembering not to tell her that her fiancé wouldn't be coming back, for the 25th or any other date. And now it's late and it's cold, and he's drunk and he doesn't think he'll be spending Christmas with anyone this year. He expects he'll probably be spending the night here, though.

…Where _was_ here, anyway?

Blearily, Matsuda glances around, and decides that rows of wooden benches plus stained glass windows and an altar equals a church. Crap. Would he go to hell for being drunk and crashing in a church…?

He should have paid more attention to those lessons in school. Whatever they'd been called.

A few minutes later, he decides that churches might be the hallowed temples of a loving God, but they are bloody uncomfortable places to sleep in.

And something keeps _yapping_…

Wait, why yapping?

Should he look into that…?

No, the pew's just starting to feel comfortable. Or he's getting too tired to care. Too tired to move.

But the thing keeps yapping and it's getting _really _annoying, and then rain starts and it turns into whining, and reluctantly Matsuda rolls onto the floor.

Ouch, crap, bad idea. Apparently he isn't so drunk that that didn't hurt.

Now, yapping?

The yapping thing turns out to be a puppy. It's curled up under a bench not far from him, which explains the volume of its yaps.

A puppy in a church. Is that funny? He can't decide so laughs anyway. Rain turns into thunder and the puppy's whining increases, and Matsuda's much too tired now too pull himself onto a bench, so he stays on the floor and hopes the animal doesn't chew his face off while he's sleeping.

He wakes up to find it curled by his side, and it follows him out of the church, watching him as he places a larger donation than he can afford in the box by the door, out of guilt. He can't shake it off all the way home, and by the time he reaches his door a mixture of a hangover and a bodily ache from sleeping on a stone floor make him not care that it's following him inside.

When he's stopped wishing he were dead, and has finally dragged himself out of bed, fixed coffee, and returned to something resembling normality, he realises that there's a dog on his couch. By then it seems too late to kick it out, and it doesn't have a collar and looks like a stray anyway, so he calls it Chief, and lets it stay.

A couple of days later, he decides not to let Ide find out about the name, but it looks at him in a way that makes him feel bad for drinking and makes him want to try harder at his job, so he can't really think of a better thing to call it.

At least he won't be completely alone at Christmas now, he muses, as he Googles 'looking after dogs' and Chief chews his toes. He pats the puppy's head absently and thinks that if they'd both ended up cold, alone and more than a little scared in a church together, maybe it's a good thing they've ended up sharing an apartment after all.

x

I dun particularly like this one but it's setting up the next chapter a bit and I need to write something cute before I plunge Matsu back into angst-land. And I like Christmas and puppies.

I think it's creepy that he calls his puppy Chief but I thought about it and that's all I could come up with. Normally I'm more imaginative, but my excuse is that Matsuda is not. /logic.


	29. Spontaneous

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note and that fact makes me sad.

Note: GAMECRAZY HOW AM I MEANT TO UPDATE WHEN YOU LINK ME TO BOUND PRINCE.

By the way, my plan for this chapter is as follows: 'Christmas, fluffiness, and a puppy. Ide plays a role.' _Are my powers of planning not astounding_. Also. I know it's not Christmas. I just don't care.

Man I like Ide way too much. I might do some stories based on him after this. ...Maybe less though. Like ten. Or the fifty sentences thing again. I couldn't manage 50 chapters on Ide o.o

x

**Spontaneous**

**Prompt: 40. Cute**

Ide rubbed his eyes, before taking in the scene before him again.

Nope, it was still the same.

"…Matusda, _when_ did you get a dog?"

The apartment was usually in a state somewhere between disorder and chaos, but today it looked like a combination of canines and Christmas had pushed it far past the latter line. It seemed Matsuda had recently bought a Christmas tree. Ide wasn't sure, but the battered stump in the corner and trails of pine needles across the floor appeared to indicate it.

Matsuda looked up from the labels he was scribbling on. "Huh? Oh, you mean Ch - him. He kind of followed me home."

"And you kept him…?"

"I thought about throwing him out, but it made me feel mean."

Well, that sounded like Matsuda. "What's his - her - name?" he asked, tentatively reaching down to pet the animal on the head. It had been sitting at his feet looking up at him expectantly for several minutes. The claw marks in the bathroom door told Ide that the animal wasn't normally this placid.

"Oh, nothing special," Matsuda said breezily.

Ide looked up from scratching the dog's ears. "What is it?"

"You'll laugh at me," Matsuda replied, starting to stick the labels on the brightly wrapped packages in front of him.

"I promise not to laugh."

"…It's Chief."

_Hideki Ide, don't you dare laugh_, he told himself. It was actually kind of cute, though - in the weird, this-man-is-far-too-old-for-this kind of cute that only Matsuda could achieve. And God, the puppy did look like it was _judging_ him…maybe it was a pretty good name, after all.

He returned his attention to what Matsuda was doing. "Uh…Matsuda, those are Christmas presents, aren't they?"

"Yep," he said, and Ide vaguely realised that anyone other than Matsuda would have bit back with a sarcastic comment about that being obvious.

"It's…Christmas Eve, Matsuda. How are you going to get them to people before _tomorrow_?"

"Ah…I was hoping you would help me with that."

Ide sighed. "And here I thought you just called me to have a few drinks and hang out for Christmas."

"Well, that too!" Matsuda said hurriedly. He looked up, flushed. "It's not that I don't want to! Of course I do, Ide! You're my friend! I just thought we could deliver these and you could help me and -"

"Calm down, Matsuda!" the other man laughed. "Hurry up with those, then - it's already nine, let's actually get this done before Christmas, eh?"

Matsuda grinned, and Ide noticed he had managed to get a label stuck to the side of his nose. He decided not to point this out, at about the same time Chief decided to start nibbling his ankle.

Twenty minutes later, he was seated in the passenger seat of Matsuda's car, with a disgruntled puppy on his lap. He eyed the dog nervously.

"Matsuda, do we have to bring the dog?"

Matsuda glanced behind him as he backed his car out. "Well I can't just leave him! I think he's pretty young, and it's _Christmas_."

"Dogs can't tell the date."

"Chief's really smart, though. He's already tricked me into feeding him twice loads of times."

"How offended would you be if I said that probably wasn't difficult?"

Matsuda practically pouted at that, and asked Ide to read the first name off the hastily scrawled list he'd handed him.

Playing Santa turned into a takeaway and beers back at Matsuda's apartment, with Chief curled up contentedly on Matsuda's lap. At half past two Matsuda decided it was too late for Ide to drive himself home, and Ide pointed out that the three beers he'd had were probably more of a danger, but seeing as neither of them really had anyone waiting, he ended up sleeping on Matsuda's couch.

He woke up to Chief chewing his fingers, the smell of a microwavable Christmas dinner, and Matsuda's anxious explanation that it was a bit late but he hadn't wanted to wake him, and decided there were worse ways to spend Christmas.

x

Note: Ah I know I guess the dog wasn't really important. But I had a yen to give Matsu a puppy. And to write a cute, happy Christmas story. And puppies make everything fluffier?

Not my favourite chapter but cute, fluffy and happy. I hope. Done from Ide's point of view because if I did it from Matsuda's, I'd end up going into how he was glad he wasn't alone and depressed and Iwantedtostfuaboutthatforonechapterofthisthingatleast.


	30. Critical Mass

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not Matsu, not Death Note. I also don't own a gun. Especially not Matsuda's gun. I don't own Shakespeare or Lady Macbeth either.

Note: LOL ANOTHER SUGGESTIVE STORY ABOUT MATSUDA'S GUN? Okay I know they're not suggestive but to me it seems like I always end up writing about Matsuda's gun. Also, I'm aware that this one is slightly similar to Projecting. But the difference is that that one dealt with a nightmare, and this deals with the whole ordeal of him not losing it totally after Yellow Box. To me, they're different enough…hope it's okay for you guys too.

x

**Critical Mass**

**Prompt: 46. Burn**

They had pulled him back.

He thinks about it afterwards, later that night, and for many nights afterwards, as the air warms from its winter chill into spring. He thinks about a blazing fury crackling up through his veins and wrapping itself around his throat, choking him and driving him forward, he thinks of sleek metal heating up in his hands and aim honed to perfection, so honed that even a shield of tears can't interrupt it.

He thinks Aizawa reached him first.

He thinks that a gun trigger is deceptively easy to pull, that it should be more difficult, should take more effort, because of what pulling that trigger can do. He thinks that this concoction bubbling in his chest, making bile rise to his throat as anger and hatred and guilt and betrayal swarm over each other, should have some external signs, because really all he looks is tired.

He thinks he might have killed him if they hadn't pulled him back.

He thinks about Shakespeare and the woman who went insane trying to wash invisible blood off her hands, and he thinks he might have ended up going that way if things had gone differently - just a few centimetres differently. He thinks of revenge and pain and the sickening urge to wipe someone out of existence, and he thinks of the cool calmness exhibited by a beautiful boy writing down names in a notebook. He can't equate the two, and wonders which one is murder. He thinks he should have fallen into some kind of abyss by now, some kind of insanity, thinks that he should be wandering around his apartment yelling "Out, damned spot!"

But they had pulled him back. On a day in January and every day since, they had pulled him back. And every day the stains are fading.

But he thinks they won't ever quite go away.


	31. Probability

Disclaimer: DOES NOT OWN.

Note: This was originally part of a longer L fic I'm currently typing up. But I liked it so much I thought I'd put it up for Matsuda instead, because it's non-angst and made me smile a bit. The L story should be up later today. Started it because Morne requested a Matsu/L fic and I can't write L so I'm learning to. YOU WANTED ME TO CHALLENGE MYSELF SONAR.

x

**Probability**

**Prompt: 36. Wall**

Ninety percent, that's how confident L was that this stunt would work and Matsuda would be saved. Of course, there was a ten percent chance it wouldn't - one of the Yotsuba employees might follow Matsuda to the window, Aiber might be just a second too slow in getting to his position -

Ten percent was enough room for error.

Ordinarily.

Matsuda was not ordinary.

L decided to rethink his figures.

Taking into account that Matsuda's sense of balance was never exactly first rate, and that there was the potential for him to be caught out before he even reached the window, and _then_ it would be a miracle if he actually fell of at the right point and landed on the mattress. Of course, he might also genuinely slip and knock his head, sending him off kilter and into the street below. Or that he'd manage to hit himself hard enough that he passed out.

Five percent, if Mogi and Yagami were good at moving mattresses quickly.

"There's a ninety-six percent chance that this will work," L said over the phone, and Matsuda breathed a sigh of relief.


	32. The Fool

Disclaimer: I don't own it and let's be honest I never will. I want a Matsuda plushie though. Anyone good at crafts?

Note: Remember that one chapter I did with Matsuda being all near-death and stuff? Yeah. This takes place during that. Sonar said she thought Near and Matsuda should have a moment together, and this is my way of creating it. I promise I'll get back to things that were actually in the manga next.

x

**The Fool**

**Prompt: 31. Tarot**

Matsuda discovered relatively quickly that near-death was not an amusing place to be.

For a start, he was in pain. Understatement - every part of his body was bruised or tender or injured in some way, from his fall, and his chest ached every time he moved and felt like it was splitting apart, felt like there were still chunks of metal imbedded in it. And what was worse than the pain - he was bedridden.

Ordinarily, Matsuda would have leapt at the chance to spend days on end in bed with no criticism or complaint from his co-workers. Ordinarily, however, Matsuda was not stuck in a house full of precociously brilliant pre-teens.

And he'd thought hanging around _Aizawa_ made him look stupid.

After three days, he'd pleased with the woman attending him to lock his door. She'd laughed in an irritating, tinkling way, and left it unlocked. Matsuda was beginning to feel like a show and tell project.

First, the children had appeared because they had heard he used to be part of the group that helped take down Kira. Anyone who'd worked with L was worth talking to, in their opinions. However, they quickly found Matsuda to be less than they'd expected. And that was when the game changed to 'make the Japanese cop cry'.

So far, they were winning.

The memories of his last encounter with the children (a particularly talkative blonde girl and a short red-headed boy) were still fresh in his mind, so when Matsuda heard the door of his room being pushed open, he pulled the sheet up over his face and tried to ignore it. But when no pokes or jeering remarks came, he peered curiously over the top of his cover.

Near was sitting in the chair by his bed, scowling at the far wall and twisting his hair. His other hand was wrapped loosely around what looked to be a pack of cards.

"Near…?" Matsuda was surprised. "Why are you - oh, wait, you were the one who brought me here!" In a sudden moment of realisation, Matsuda decided that that _must_ be what had happened. How on Earth hadn't he cottoned onto that faster?

Near remained silent. His gaze shifted from the wall to the cards he was carrying, and he emptied them into his hand and began to shuffle them.

Matsuda wasn't really used to receiving visitors who didn't speak, but after the last week, it was almost a welcome respite.

After a few minutes where the only sound was the shuffling of cards, however, it became slightly uncomfortable.

"So…" Matsuda said, hoping to break the silence. What could he _say_? He hadn't seen Near face-to-face since Yellow Box; he hadn't trusted him then and he didn't now. Especially since he'd been the one who'd almost got Matsuda killed. But…he did seem to be taking responsibility for that. And looking after him. So maybe…

"Hey, thank you for bringing me here after I - y'know," he continued, grinning a little sheepishly. "From what the doctor's saying, I'd have been a goner if you hadn't."

Near didn't look at him, but leant over the table and dealt out three cards, face down. Looking at them, Matsuda noticed that they were larger than ordinary playing cards, and more elaborately designed. Near turned the first card over, and Matsuda recognised them. Tarot cards.

A picture of a man on a horse looked up at him, captioned with the word 'Death'.

Matsuda decided to ask his doctor to check if he was still doing okay the next time he saw him.

The second card read 'Justice', and the third, 'The Fool'. He was pretty sure Near had managed to rig the deck somehow. He was a genius, after all.

"One of the largest parts of utilising things like this," Near said, cradling the remaining cards in his hand, "is interpretation." He pointed to the Fool card. "This is you."

Obviously.

"More literally, it refers to beginnings. If you like, we shall say it describes a new beginning for you - your life has been saved, you should have got all that recklessness out of your system by now. It is time to move on, Mr Matsuda."

Matsuda opened his mouth to respond, but Near's finger had already drifted across to the next card.

"This is what we are fighting for, people like you and I," he continued, as the character on the Justice card stared balefully up at them, sword raised. "Each of us may have different opinions and different methods but ultimately, this is what must prevail. It is clarity, fairness, and straightforwardness. Simple concepts that people never seem to grasp…I have noticed that you, however, do."

Near moved to the Death card and picked it up, hanging it in front of him. "This is what would have happened to me if you had not shot Light Yagami," he said simply, and laid it down again.

Matsuda stared at him, struggling to make the thoughts meet in his mind. He _knew_ Near hadn't just come in here to talk about tarot cards, so he must be trying to imply the things he wasn't saying. Aizawa and Ide were always doing that with each other, saying half the story and letting their years of friendship translate the rest.

Matsuda had never understood it.

After a while, Near left, as quietly as he had entered. He took the tarot cards with him - except for one, which he left lying on Matsuda's table.

Matsuda picked it up.

The Fool.

He smiled. It was as close to an apology or a thank you as the two of them were going to get.

x

Note: Argh I don't know if I really achieved what I wanted to there. But I felt that if I tried to explain it more it would get really boring and long and OOC. Near's always ambiguous anyway, and Matsuda's not that bright. Hurray excuses. Also, I know NOTHING about tarot cards. I looked all this up with the help of a website. I didn't want to go too far into it either hence the 'lol obvious' conclusions I drew from them.


	33. Influence

Disclaimer: I don't own Matsuda. Ohba and Obata do.

Note: Because of the line "I only got the job because of my connections, anyway, my dad'll be disappointed but who cares?" A little bit of made-up background! This is probably going to be part of another little arc that'll leave off where his part in the story begins.

x

**Influence**

**Prompt: 11. Seeing**

When he grew up, he wanted to be a cop.

Matsuda had this goal pretty fixed in his mind. Which was unusual for the eight year old - unusual for most eight year olds, but particularly so for this one. Matsuda was almost notorious for not being able to hang onto an idea or keep at a task for longer than twenty-six minutes (his mother had timed it in a desperate attempt to chart progress).

But no, Matsuda wanted to be a cop.

Part of it might have been to do with the gun, and part of it might have been to do with being able to protect people. But a big part of it was to do with doing what you were told. Cops helped people out by taking the same courses of action anyone would, by being brave enough to do it. They didn't have to think, or work things out - Matsuda hated thinking.

So Matsuda grew up, worked out, and practiced with air guns and potato shooters at the back of his house. And by the time he was twenty-one, he'd got a job as a cop.

Matsuda was happy.

Then, Matsuda's superiors started smiling at him. He didn't really think anything of it - they were friendly guys, after all, they had been round the house all the time, chatting to his dad. It was a bit weird, because Matsuda got things wrong a lot more than some of the other cops (but still, a lot less than some others). But it was probably because they knew him.

It was a little bit more weird to promote someone just because you'd been over their house a few times, though. And Matsuda kept getting promoted.

When we was made detective at the age of twenty-three, and transferred to the NPA in Tokyo, his father had laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and said he was proud. And by now Matsuda knew he wasn't very smart, so it was probably just his imagination that made the words sound like a warning. Still, when he got to the NPA, he made sure to try hard to do things that would make his dad proud.

It didn't feel the same as the PD he'd come from, that was for sure. He was sure he caught people giving him odd looks, as he hurried from one part of the building to another, stacks of papers in his arms. And there wasn't as much field work, it was mostly poring over papers and looking stuff up in databases. He didn't know why some of the detectives he worked with dismissed him before they even met him, or why when they referred to him as "the Defence minister's boy", expressions of confusion melted into expressions of hostility.

At first, anyway. After a while, he began to understand things like influence and connections, and why his dad was so serious about him working hard in this job.

So Matsuda worked hard, because even if he only got this job because his dad had friends willing to pull strings, he still had to make him proud.

Even if he still just wanted to be a cop.


	34. Protection

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, Matsuda, Soichiro or anything else from the series.

Note: Sorry about the whole no-update-yesterday thing. The power in my house blew so I couldn't get anything up, then my friend emailed me from China and she was kinda depressed and was wondering if I'd written any more fan fiction she could read (she's not into DN, yet) so I spent an hour or so cobbling together stuff for her. I WON'T LET HER BE SAD.

So I'll get 2, possibly three, chapters up today. Finish this arc and go to something else.

x

**Protection**

**Prompt: 12. Trade**

The corridors of the NPA were particularly long when everybody was glaring at you as you walked past.

Okay, maybe he was exaggerating - maybe it wasn't _everybody_. But if it was enough for Matsuda to notice, then it was certainly a lot. He didn't suppose he could blame them - he remembered when one of the kids in his high school got treated differently by teachers just because his dad was the headmaster, and none of the other kids thought it was fair. He figured this was something like that. He'd always felt bad for the other kid, though, because it wasn't his fault. He just wanted people to stop muttering about him and not letting him hang out with him.

Matsuda realised that that was how he felt now.

He was hurrying down a third floor corridor (too many people around, got to move faster) and turned into another one (blissfully empty, for once), his attention focused on not letting the pile of papers slip from his grasp. He wasn't focusing on where he was going - he'd memorised most of the pathways around the building by now. He couldn't memorise people's locations, though, and had not expected to literally run into someone half way down the hall.

The papers he was carrying skidded from his grasp and he dropped down to collect them, glancing up and apologising profusely as he did so.

"Ch -chief Yagami! Sir, I'm so sorry, I was - um - I guess my mind was wandering and I'm really sorry, it won't happen again! I didn't mean to bump into you, sir, are you okay? I'm so sorry -"

The man above him blinked down in confusion. "It's okay. Please just…try to breathe." He bent down to help Matsuda pick up the papers. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met?"

"M-matsuda, sir!"

"Ah, of course. That would explain why you are being made to carry stacks of paper around the building when we have an internal e-mail system functioning perfectly well."

Matsuda's cheeks turned red and he focused on organising the papers. Even Chief Yagami had heard about him, the kid that wasn't meant to be here and that just got sent on errands instead of doing a detective's work.

Yagami straightened up and Matsuda followed suit. The older man placed the stack of papers he had collected onto Matsuda's pile.

"Thank you, sir, I'm sorry about -"

"Stop apologising, Matsuda," Yagami said, with a smile. Then, his smile faded, and was replaced with a frown. "Matsuda - did you want to become a detective here?"

"Of course I did! My dad always said how the NPA was one of the most crucial institutions in the country, and it's an honour to be able to work here!"

The Chief of Detectives studied him quietly for a few moments. "You don't seem to be very at home in this job."

"That's different!" Matsuda blurted, his cheeks reddening again.

"Quite."

Yagami removed his hand from the papers and patted Matsuda on the shoulder, indicating he should be on his way. Matsuda nodded, deciding it was better not to say anything else. When he had almost reached the end of the corridor, Yagami called out to him.

"Matsuda. Would you object if I had you transferred so that you were working directly for me, not Tanimi?"

"Um, no sir, but I don't see why you would want -"

"Don't worry about it. I just think…you could use someone looking after you for a while."

Matsuda focused his gaze on the papers in his arms. "Um…yeah. Thank you, sir."

"You'll be moved to my department on Monday."

Monday came and passed and the routine of Matsuda's day changed. He wasn't sent on so many pointless errands delivering papers to people five floors up, instead, he was asked to review case reports, gather information on suspects and monitor trends in data. He'd be the first to admit that the work wasn't as exciting as what he'd had to do back in his local PD, but…

…under the watchful eye of Chief Yagami, he began to feel useful again.

After a while, he stopped dreading coming into work so much.

After a little while longer, he started to think he was even enjoying it.

Matsuda still didn't really make any friends. But the Chief kept asking his opinion, and checking if he was okay, so after a while had passed again, he started to feel that it didn't really matter.

x

Okay so I know bumping into someone and papers flying everywhere is like THE MOST OVERUSED CONCEPT EVER. And that I didn't really achieve what I wanted to with this - it doesn't feel like it came out very well. Next chapter is the last 'Matsuda becoming a detective' one and then we'll go back to the angst, I think. Or idk canon in general. Have I done everything that was requested? If I haven't remind me. I know I still have one of Sonar's…which is coming up after the next chapter. Woot.


	35. Dedication

Disclaimer: Still not mine, but the plan is in the works.

Note: I'm aware I made Matsuda very excited about this, but hey, if he can get excited over Takada, he can get excited over anything. He totally _was_ the guy at the ICPO conference. And I actually looked up where the HQ was online. Lyon, France. Woop.

x

**Dedication**

**Prompt: 13. Call**

Matsuda had been in the office from 6am, researching the recent spate of heart attacks among criminals like the Chief had asked him to do. When the Chief asked him to do something, Matsuda forewent sleep to make sure he got it done.

The Chief normally came in by 8, so he wanted to have made some progress by then.

But 8am came, went, and turned into 9 and then 10, and there was still no sign of the Chief. Other officers had started trickling in, glancing at the Chief's empty seat in some measure of confusion. A couple of them had even asked Matsuda if he knew anything.

He didn't, until the call came in at about 11.

"Hey, Matsuda, it's for you," one of the detectives, a guy called Ukita, said, holding the phone out to him.

"Thanks, Ukita," he said, taking the phone.

"Think it's the Chief - hey, find out where he is!" Ukita slapped him on the back as he made his way back to his desk.

"Hello?" Matsuda said into the phone.

"Ah, Matsuda. It's Yagami."

Like he wouldn't have recognised the voice. "Oh, hey Chief! Where are you? People are starting to get worried!"

"I'm not coming in this morning, I have some arrangements to make. There's an ICPO meeting in a couple of days at the HQ in France."

"Oh? Is it because of all this stuff about Kira?"

"It is. I want you to come with me, if you don't have anything planned."

If he had, he'd have cancelled it in a heartbeat. The Chief wanted _him_ to go to Interpol!

"Sure thing, Chief!" He hoped his enthusiasm wasn't _too_ obvious. It probably was.

"Okay, I'll call you with the arrangements later. Carry on looking into the heart attacks today. Goodbye."

"Bye, sir." Matsuda replaced the phone on its hook, his chest swelling.

Him.

The Chief was counting on _him_.

He wouldn't let him down.


	36. Living Dogs

Disclaimer: I have a cup of tea in a Buzz Lightyear mug. But I don't own Death Note.

Note: Meh. I originally wanted this to be more…short. Idea of L's funeral from Sonar. Idea of food at L's grave stolen from Dattebayo Girl. Lack of Matsu in the first part of this, then he comes back. The quotes, they're all I had written down near me (I've been collecting quotes on justice and law recently for my personal statement) and seemed appropriate.

Title explained in next chapter. Incidentally, gypsophila is my favourite flower.

x

**Living Dogs**

**Prompt: 21. Faith**

They didn't know if it was their place.

They had known L for - what? Months? A year, at the most? And the life he had lived…the people he must have met, bonds he must have formed…they didn't know, no, they were _sure_ it wasn't their place.

But reason won out, because what else could they do with his body?

The funeral was small, obscenely so, for this man who had protected so many. They buried him with a mostly blank tombstone because they didn't know his date of birth, and couldn't bring themselves to lay him to rest under 'Ryuzaki' or 'Ryuga'.

The only inscriptions on it were two quotes from Aristotle, because Light had said they were appropriate, and he couldn't be buried next to Watari because they'd found out who he was, and his family had claimed the body.

Each member of the task force had paid their respects quietly, and the priest had said some words, and the grave was closed.

When the trials over the next few years became too much, Matsuda would return to the grave, alone, and he would sit and talk to thin air for hours. He talked to the barely-scarred tombstone in ways he wouldn't have dared talk to Ryuzaki, but would have liked to. He asked him about his past and knew he wouldn't get an answer, and told him about his.

He asked him why he was so sure catching Kira was a good thing, and why he was so sure Light was Kira. He told him earnestly that he was wrong, and he couldn't help but feel, through the lines of the inscriptions and the sparse grass growing around them, that the marble was silently disagreeing.

Matsuda could never decide if he had looked up to Ryuzaki or not. His methods, his distrust, his distance…and his righteousness, his determination, his willingness to sacrifice himself for what he though was right…

Sometimes, Matsuda confessed to the gravestone that he was afraid of dying. He was twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven…he was only twenty eight, he was too young to die.

Ryuzaki had probably been younger.

Every time when he visited, he would talk, and he would leave a strawberry or piece of bean jelly instead of flowers. He knew that animals would probably eat the sweets away, and he knew Ryuzaki would probably appreciate it more than tulips or wispy bunches of gypsophila.

And before leaving, he would read the inscriptions on the grave. He would remind himself that if Ryuzaki was willing to die for this, and if the Chief, and Light, and Aizawa were all willing to die for this, he should be, too.

_The law is reason, free from passion._

_In justice is all virtues found in sum._


	37. Dead Lions

Disclaimer: Guess what, I don't own this.

Note: Abstract angst. Hurray! And also, Living Dogs is now one of my favourite chapters so far.

Title: One of my favourite quotes. "For a living dog is better than a dead lion". Matsuda may not be as important or as brave or as smart as L/the Chief etc., but he's still alive, and that has to count for something. Quote is from the Bible, btw.

x

**Dead Lions**

**Prompt: 05. Miserable**

_What were you thinking when you shot Mr X?_

Because Matsuda can't tell the state counsellor he was assigned all the facts, 'therapy' is difficult.

He wishes Aizawa wouldn't make him go, because he doesn't think it would help. He wants to talk about it, but not to this man, with his crossed legs and bald head, and eyes that sweep over Matsuda and tell him all his preconceptions are wrong.

The man is used to dealing with cops and in the end has decided they are all the same. Matsuda thinks he is the one who should reconsider his preconceptions.

_I was thinking that he killed his father. I was thinking that he killed Ryuzaki. That he killed Ukita. That he tried to kill me, that he tried to kill Ide…_

_I was thinking that I was stupid and he was smart._

_I was thinking that maybe if I shot him I could make up for being so damned blind and letting him get away with everything he did right in front of me._

_I was thinking if I killed him I could bring them back._

But Matsuda doesn't say this, because he's not so stupid anymore, and if he gives this man any cause he will make a case study out of him. So he bows his head and mutters that he wasn't thinking straight, and he probably felt angry about what Mr X had done.

Which he can't tell him, because of how delicate the situation still is.

Which makes 'therapy' difficult.


	38. Constriction

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, Ide or Matsuda. Or a gym membership.

Note: Hope this is clear. I think caffeine is bad for your heart? Oh, caffeine's bad for everything so it's a safe bet. Another chapter in which Matsuda has deeply-rooted psychological problems.

If I'd worked on the Kira case, I swear to God I would never eat cheese again and I'd get a heart check up _every single week_.

x

**Constriction**

**Prompt: 30. Stripped**

On the nights when Matsuda does not dream about shooting beautiful boys with mud in their veins, he dreams about a horrible, crushing pressure in his chest, and he's never had a heart attack but the Chief described it to him once, and he knows this is what it would feel like. And just when he thinks the vessel must be about to burst from all the strain and he's screaming in agony, there's a face above him, as angelic and as cruel as always.

He wonders how many others - Raye Penber, Ryuzaki - went through this same thing, only with reality and mortality pounding in their years.

When he wakes up, he logs onto the internet and checks the page he's bookmarked - 'Help Your Heart' - and fixes himself a cholesterol-free breakfast. He digs out the membership card for the gym he joined and gets into the office early, to see if Ide wants to join him. A lot of the time he declines, but some mornings, when there are dark circles under his eyes and his coffee is switched to decaf, Ide takes up his offer, and mutely, they fight their respective demons.

x

Incidentally NINETY EIGHT REVIEWS. Two more for a hundred OH MY GOD YAY. I was going to offer the hundredth reviewer a chance to name my firstborn child, but Dattebayo Girl suggested it might be better to let them request a one-shot or something. So yeah, Datte-chan, I'mma go with that (though suggestions for the as-yet-unconceived child's name welcome)


	39. Limbo

Disclaimer: Don't own it, never will. I know, I know, I cry myself to sleep about it.

Note: Not sure where I'm going with this one…feeling a tad dried up but I owed you an update. Only about eleven chapters left and I want to make them good ones…just feeling kind of off. Ah well. A Level results tomorrow, wish me luck. Any ideas, very much welcomed at this stage.

Blacksteel1, congrats on being the hundredth reviewer! Your fic about Matsuda and coffee will be put up as soon as I get a spark of inspiration for it…not going to put up something half-assed, don't worry!

x

**Limbo**

**Prompt: 01. Radio**

Matsuda wasn't a religious man, but he wondered sometimes if he should be praying, just in case. After all, people prayed every day when the most exciting thing in their lives was Mrs So-and-So's new haircut, and they seemed to be doing okay…so who knows, maybe it would do him some good against Kira, too.

He would be kneeling on the floor - or sometimes on his bed, he wasn't sure how this worked - with his hands clasped, when he remembered that Kira thought he _was_ God, and damned if he was going to begging _Kira_ to spare his life.

So Matsuda didn't pray. He'd abandon the attempt every time, and lean back in bed, sleep chased away for another night. He'd turn on the radio and listen to late-night Kira specials until the sun starts to filter through the blinds and by then he's usually almost forgotten who he is or what he's fighting for, but at least he's too tired to worry about his immortal soul anymore.


	40. Unblemished

Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note or Matsuda Ide. Chief, however, belongs to me.

Note: HELL YES FIVE A'S. Even in Economics. Hell. Yes. Anyway wrote this last night and would have posted it except I was too tired to go to my computer so just scribbled it in a notebook. I feel better about this one.

x

**Unblemished**

**Prompt: 14. History**

Time passes, years go by.

Matsuda stops looking over his shoulder so much, and seeing Light Yagami every time a college kid walks by. The nightmares don't stop because mostly, scars don't ever disappear, but they've faded enough that he can learn to go back to sleep after waking up shaking, instead of spending the rest of the night pacing around his apartment like a caged lion.

He thinks perhaps caged monkey might be a better term, though, because he is still doing the same old tricks and pulling the same crowd. He's gotten smarter but so has everyone else, so he's still an idiot by comparison. But now he understands what L's talking about most of the time, and doesn't have to ask Aizawa to explain so much.

He goes out with Ide for beers but doesn't get drunk unless he's alone, because he seems to remember he's talkative and melancholy when he's drunk, and they both know that means Kira. Chief gets fat, because Matsuda spends more money feeding the dog than he does himself, and the spaniel's joints start creaking with a mixture of age and arthritis. But Matsuda still lives alone and doesn't want the apartment to be empty again, so he shells out for vets bills, until eventually Ide notices he's only eating instant noodles and dried dog food.

They rent an apartment together, partly because they figure they fall asleep on each other's sofas enough these days anyway, but mostly because Ide is still worried about Matsuda, and he's determined to make him right again. The one they end up renting is bigger than both of theirs put together and more economic, and Chief gets a spare room to himself because the dog decides he wants one, and neither man is brave enough to disagree with him. Matsuda isn't alone enough to dink anymore, so he gives it up.

Time passes. In the morning, Matsuda fixes pancakes or eggs, and makes an extra one for Chief, and the coffee's ready about the same time Ide's alarm starts going. The older man is gruff and grumpy in the morning, but it beats waking up with a hangover and a crick in the neck from sleeping on a gun, so Matsuda just grins and offers him a mug and a plate.

One day, he wakes up, and the scars have gone.

X

I made Chief a spaniel, by the way. Either an American Water or English Springer. They're supposed to be intelligent, active, and destructive when bored. Plus I completely see Matsuda as a spaniel man. That's my reasoning, anyway!

I remembered how much I liked the idea of Matsuda and Ide living together, but decided not to go with it because it was silly blah blah…then I remembered I'm doing this for fun so DAMN IT they move in together. Not meant to be a pairing, there aren't any in this fic, just pure friendship.


	41. Passing The Torch

Disclaimer: It's not mine, after 40 chapters I think it's reasonable to say we've established that much as fact.

Note: MOGI IS SO OUT OF CHARACTER OMG. I really cannot write this guy. I'm blaming that on the fact that he doesn't say much that isn't really related to the case. I like him though, hope this turned out okay. I needed some dialogue because the last five chapters have been dialogue-less, I think.

OH AND INCIDENTALLY (I love caps, can you tell) this story has like nine chapters left to run o.o Because I believe in extracting every drop of goodness from any kind of franchise, even the profitless ones, would anyone be interested if I were to do another one of these based on the taskforce as a whole? Perhaps even the SPK members? You know, like the supporting cast of players. Anyone?

x

**Passing The Torch**

**Prompt: 29. Smile**

Matsuda sighed. Sure, he'd got out of Yotsuba headquarters alive, along with important information, but it hadn't occurred to him until _afterwards_ that it was going to cost him his job as Misa's manager. To be honest, he hadn't realised it until he'd seen his 'death' in the newspaper, and reading the miniature title line "Misa Amane's manager dies in drunken fall".

He had _liked_ being Misa's manager. He knew he wasn't able to help out much around the headquarters, and that had made him feel like he was doing something, at least.

Now, Mogi was going to take over. _Mogi_. What did _Mogi_ know about being a manager?!

A little voice in the back of his head asked Matsuda what _he_ knew about being a manager, but he'd been ignoring that voice for years.

"Matsuda?"

Oh, speak of the devil. "Morning, Mogi," Matsuda said.

Mogi seemed to notice the lack of customary over-enthusiasm in the other man's tone, and frowned. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm doing pretty good, considering I'm dead and all."

Mogi moved over and took a seat next to him. "It was brave, what you did. I'm not sure if anyone's told you that yet, but it was."

"Huh? I guess…mostly they're just telling me it was stupid."

A pause. Matsuda realised that this was probably the first time he'd ever held a one-on-one conversation with the man.

"So…you're Misa's new manager."

Mogi coughed. "Yes, that's actually…that's really what I wanted to ask you about, Matsuda."

Matsuda looked over at him, confused. "What? Didn't Ryuzaki tell you everything you needed to know?"

"Well…he told me all the technical things, like my duties and so on. But…er, I really - that is to say, you may have noticed that I'm not really -" Mogi trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Matsuda, I'm not _suited_ for this. And you were so good at it…I was wondering if you good give me some, um, pointers. Or something."

Matsuda sat up and stared at Mogi, slack jawed with astonishment. "You want _me_ to help _you_? But - but you're so good at everything, and I'm -"

"Matsuda! Please!" Mogi sounded desperate. "I haven't got the first clue about this kind of thing, and frankly…Misa-Misa scares me a little bit."

Matsuda laughed. "She _scares_ you?!"

Mogi turned red. "It's just - she's so _loud_! And chatty, and happy and so tiny…stop laughing, Matsuda!"

"I can't help it," Matsuda choked out. "It's just imagining you, scared of _her_…she must be half your height!"

"That's what's so weird about it!"

Matsuda managed to stop himself from laughing for a few moments. "Well…the first tip I can give you is not to be _scared_ of her." For a second, he thought he saw Mogi's mouth twitch. Maybe Mogi actually had a sense of humour…?

"Second tip?"

"Second tip…" Matsuda thought for a moment, and then raised his finger. "Second tip! _Smile_!" He flashed a bright grin to demonstrate.

Mogi frowned. "Smile…?"

"Yes, Mogi, smile. It's really not that difficult. Most people have been doing it all their lives."

"I know how to smile, Matsuda."

"Then prove it," he challenged, widening his own grin.

Mogi let out a breath. "Fine, fine…" He smiled tentatively back.

"See? You can do it! Just try to make it big and excited." He clapped Mogi on the shoulder, his bad mood from earlier evaporating. Maybe he wasn't useless quite yet. "Okay, third tip…"


	42. Perfect

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Note: If Light seems too nice in this one…it's cos it's all pre-Death Note and stuff. He's still the 'nice guy' version. And the manga tells me that the Chief had brought Matsuda round the house before, so here's our favourite dorky cop meeting the Yagamis for the first time.

x

**Perfect**

**Prompt: 03. Envy**

Matsuda trudged up the driveway, a few paces behind the Chief.

"I know it seems strange," the Chief was saying, "but he really is incredibly intelligent. I'm not just saying this as a father, though of course I'm immeasurably proud." He flashed a grin back at Matsuda.

"You really think he can help with the case, Chief?"

"I'm pretty sure he'll manage to find something we've all missed." The Chief fumbled in his pocket for a key and unlocked the door. "Try not to scare my daughter, Matsuda."

"You got it, Chief! Hey - what?"

The Chief laughed and pushed the door open. "I'm home!"

A woman appeared from a room at the end of the hall. "Oh, Soichiro! We weren't expecting you for another hour! And a guest?" She glanced over at Matsuda, as a girl poked her head out from behind her skirt.

"Who's that, daddy?" the girl asked, frowning up at them.

"This is Matsuda, one of the detectives in my department. He's working with me on this case. We - er, Sachiko, I know you're not really fond of me doing this but -"

The woman, who Matsuda assumed must be called Sachiko, let out a sigh. "He's upstairs. Will you be staying for dinner, Matsuda?"

"Er -" Matsuda glanced at the Chief, not sure what answer he was supposed to give.

The Chief smiled. "Why not? We'll just talk to Light first, okay?"

"Everyone always wants to talk to Light!" the girl standing behind Sachiko exclaimed. "Why doesn't anyone want to talk to _me_?"

"Go lay the table, Sayu," Sachiko said, pushing her back into the kitchen.

"But I want to see the detective too!"

"_Table, now_."

The Chief chuckled at Matsuda's terrified expression. "She's only thirteen, Matsuda, she can't hurt you."

"Y-yeah, course. I'm just - um - not used to- oh, thank you for inviting me to dinner, Chief!" he added, suddenly remembering his manners.

"You're welcome - but come on, we have business to attend to," he replied, heading up the stairs. He knocked on the door directly at the top, and a voice said "Come in."

The Chief poked his head into the room. "Light? Are you busy?"

"Not very, why? Welcome home, by the way."

"Thanks. Just I have some case notes I'd like you to take at."

"Again?" A laugh from inside the room. "You're going to have no choice but to hire me when I'm old enough, dad."

The Chief moved into the room, nodding for Matsuda to follow. "Like the department would want to do anything else but get you on the staff as soon as possible. Matsuda, this is Light, my son. Light, Matsuda, one of the men who works under me."

The boy at the desk stood up. He was a little bit taller than Matsuda, and, he decided, about a hundred times better looking. He smiled, and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"Oh! Pleased to meet you, too!" Matsuda bowed quickly, then remembered that Light had been extending his hand, and moved to shake it, cheeks turning red. Light laughed, but not unkindly. Then he smiled, and Matsuda began to feel more at ease.

"Anyway, dad, you wanted me to look at something?"

"Here." The Chief held out a folder full of papers. "All the details of the crimes are on the first page. We almost captured him a few days ago but he got away, seems like he's gone into hiding. We're trying to find out where."

Light nodded and took the files, sitting back down at his desk. He began to scan through the pages, glancing back at the first page occasionally. Matsuda shifted from one foot to the other, and glanced around the room.

It didn't look like a teenage boy's room. No posters, no CDs, just rows and rows of books and everything stacked in its place, neatly, perfectly. But then, that pretty much summed up his first impression of the Chief's son. Perfect.

"Here," Light said, holding out a page to his father. "This guy, he's mad but he doesn't seem like he's very good at this. He's been getting away on a combination of luck and tip offs. He's going to be pretty scared after coming so close to being caught, and I think he's probably going to head somewhere safe."

The Chief frowned at the page. "Information about his university lodgings? He left university three years ago."

"Yes, but look." Light held out another page. "He's never had a stable home life, so he's not going to go there. The place he's living now, well, he's not stupid enough to think you would check there. So he's going back the first place he called home."

"The university!" Matsuda gasped.

"Yes. I think that's your best bet." Light shuffled the papers into a pile and put them back into the folder, handing them to the Chief.

"Light, I'll have someone check that out now, thank you." The Chief pulled out his phone and punched in a number, turning away to talk into it.

"That was pretty impressive, Light!" Matsuda said, slightly more eagerly than he'd wanted.

Light laughed. "I'm just good at working things out. I'm probably not as good at it as most of the detectives, though. It's probably just because I have a fresh viewpoint on it. All the groundwork is done."

Matsuda doubted very much that, from what the Chief had told him, any of the detectives on the force could match Light in terms of sheer deductive reasoning. He thought Light probably knew that, and that modesty could be added to the kid's growing list of positive attributes.

Later, walking back to his own small, poorly-lit apartment, Matsuda realised that the Chief really did have it all. Great at his job, with a kind wife, a cute daughter and a brilliant son…

Maybe if he worked really, really hard, Matsuda might, one day, get to be even half as lucky as the Chief was.

x

OKAY so I enabled anonymous reviews (didn't even realise they weren't on) and three of you reviewed and I CAN'T REPLY and that bothers me so. I'm replying here.

Ada Ikito: Glad you liked it! If you remember the idea, by all means, let me know. Ide being ordered to hit Matsuda with a chair is lol.

Akiha Hakare: Matsuda trying to hook Ide up with a girl..but that interupts all my hopes for Matsuda/Ide! Lol I could actually imagine him trying to give Ide romance lessons and Ide just being like "wtf?" Mind if I steal that for my possible ideas pile? Here's a Light and Matsuda moment, gonna hopefully do one during the four year gap too. But this is something I've been wanting to write for a while. And YES I NOTICED the reason I'm not objecting is because I can delude myself that if I was in the DN universe, my age would help me stand a chance XD

BetterMan: He probably does have those days, which is why in this fic he has Ide. I don't really see Matsuda as having been the class clown - to me that indicates wit and charm, and Matsuda seems to lack those. He's more just clumsy and dorky. He's also pretty shy at times, I think. He's sort of hang out on the outside of groups I reckon. Would be interesting to go back and look at though! I'll keep that in mind, about Matsuda proving himself to be smart. Finding the opportunity for him to show it will be difficult, though!


	43. Advice

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, I do own water guns.

Note: I don't know why kids with water guns would be running through graveyards either. To anyone who had their first day back at school today: sucks I know. I have two weeks left. Hope your day wasn't too tiring!

x

**Advice**

**Prompt: 16. Message**

"Maybe I should just leave the case," Matsuda sighed, leaning back against the gravestone. Leaves churned as the breeze picked up into wind, but there was no response from Ryuzaki. Probably because he was dead, but Matsuda decided that even if the man _could_ find a way to respond, he'd be so fed up of seeing Matsuda here after three years he'd most likely choose not to anyway.

"I mean," the detective continued, picking the jelly beans off the top of his cake and laying them on the earth in front of the stone, "I'm not really helping anyone. Light's got pretty much everything covered when it comes to being smart, Aizawa and the Chief have got the connections and Mogi's so efficient at everything…I told you Ide's with us now, right? Anything I was good at before, he can do better now…" Matsuda trailed off, laughing. "Listen to me. I'm moaning about this and you're the one who's dead."

He took a bite of his cake. It was one of the ones you got for kids, with a ludicrous number of sweets on top and an overly sugary filling. He bought one every time he visited the grave, and though he was always prepared for any weird looks, none ever came. He guessed people were pretty lenient when it came to those mourning for the dead.

"What do you think? I bet if you were here - and if we'd ever actually talked about this kind of stuff - you'd know what I should do."

"Gotcha!"

"No _fair_! I said no hiding behind the stones! We shouldn't even be in here…"

Matsuda looked round. A pair of children were running up the path, a little girl chasing an older-looking boy who was shooting at her over his shoulder with a water gun.

"Ha! If you can't keep up, go home!"

"Mummy said I have to stay with you…"

The boy turned a corner and ran out of sight. The girl stumbled to a halt when she caught sight of Matsuda, looking frightened, and then crept after the boy when it became obvious he wasn't going to yell at her. He noticed she was holding a water gun, too, smaller and bright yellow.

Children playing with toys among the dead. Playing with guns…

Matsuda turned back to the grave and raised his eyebrows. "Water guns? Is that a sign, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki didn't respond.

Come to think of it…it had been a while since he'd visited the shooting range. He'd been so busy trying to keep up with the others on the Kira case…

Matsuda got to his feet, and dusted himself off. "Guess you've managed to get rid of me for today, then," he grinned, laying the remainder of his cake by the grave. "You should be getting good at it by now." He laid a hand respectfully on the top of the stone for a moment, and then headed for the entrance.

He _was_ a good shot, after all. Maybe it would come in useful.


	44. Static And Spaniels

Disclaimer: Making no money off this. Credit for characters goes to Ohba and Obata.

Note: The co-habitation was too awesome to leave be without at least poking it a _bit_. I know it's a bit late in the game to be using ideas that are from the timeline I've given them rather than actual canon, but I liked this so much I couldn't resist.

I had so much fun writing this. I tried to do it from Chief's POV a bit (not easy), so as far as the speech goes…he hears them, he just doesn't know what they're saying. And it would be really difficult to do this without speech so ARTISTIC LICENSE or whatever.

I really like Chief but I'm kind of amazed Matsuda hasn't killed him by accident.

x

**Static And Spaniels**

**Prompt: 06. Storm**

A flash of lightening cast stark shadows through the room, and Chief sat bolt upright. _Light_? But…but that wasn't right. It was dark now. This time of the day it was _always_ dark, when Idiot Owner and Moron Owner went away into separate rooms, and Chief was left on his own.

The spaniel wasn't prepared for the crash of thunder that came a few seconds later, and he yelped and scrambled out of his basket, dashing across the apartment. Moron Owner never remembered to shut his door properly, so Chief had no problem pushing it open and shooting under the covers, pressing his furry body about against Moron Owner's and pressing his nose into his chest.

"Ack!" Moron Owner squawked and started flailing, getting tangled up in his sheets and falling backwards out of bed. "What?! What? Oh, Chief. That's what that thing was…your nose."

Moron Owner kept making noises and trying to disentangle himself. Chief drew himself into a sitting position and stared disdainfully down at him.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. Were you scared of the storm, boy?" Moron Owner leant forward and rubbed the top of Chief's head. He turned to glance out of the window, pulling the curtain aside. "Guess it does look pretty bad tonight. Want something to warm you up? …Can dogs drink coffee?"

Moron Owner managed to get the sheet off him, and Chief padded after him into the kitchen. The man moved some things around and Chief picked out the sound of the tap being turned on. Moron Owner bent down and picked up Chief's bowl and the dog perked up, circling round his feet and wagging his tail. Food?

A chinking kind of sound and water being poured, and Chief's bowl was put back down on the floor with a kind of brown, milky liquid filling it. He looked up at Moron Owner, a little confused, and the man just smiled and mumbled something and took a drink out of a mug with a cat on. Chief sniffed the brown liquid and tentatively poked his tongue into it. It wasn't bad. And it was warm. He lowered his head and began to lap it up appreciatively.

"Matsuda?"

Chief glanced up, noted that it was Idiot Owner, and went back to the brown stuff.

"Chief woke me up, so I made coffee," Moron Owner said. "You want some?"

"Uh…yeah, go on. He couldn't have woken you up more _quietly_?"

"…I fell out of bed, okay?"

"Really?"

"Shut up!"

Silence for a few moments, then -

"Matsuda…tell me that's not coffee."

"Where?"

"In Chief's bowl."

"Huh? Oh, I thought he might like to try it. Don't worry, I didn't put any sugar in! I know sugar's bad for dogs." Moron Owner sounded proud of himself.

Lightening struck again and the lights through the apartment flickered out.

Idiot Owner let out a kind of strangled groan. Chief just carried on lapping up the coffee, serenely unconcerned.


	45. Unrequited

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note in any of its incarnations. I want a Matsuda that buys me presents on other people's behalf, though.

Note: Oh look, Light and Misa! Haven't really written these guys before so it's a bit clumsy. Sorry. Hope you'll not mind the idea though, it might be a bit strange but I see it as something Matsuda would do spur of the moment to try to 'help'.

In other news, read Their Nightmares by Maelstrom Sparrow. Read her other one shots too, by all means, but especially read this one. It's a look at the kind of dreams the people involved in the Kira case might have had at some point, and it's brilliant. I get credited for influencing Matsuda's! Yay!

And also the prompt for this is sex because that's what Light's getting and I literally cannot think of another way to use it. It's not like Matsuda's going to get any. Ever.

x

**Unrequited**

**Prompt: 34. Sex**

Light Yagami let out a long sigh, pausing to lean against the wall one flight of stairs away from his penthouse apartment. It had been an exhausting day. The taskforce had very nearly stumbled onto something he'd missed earlier on, and he'd been frantically pushing them away from it. Playing Kira and L most definitely had its advantages, but it was tiring work.

And then…and then home. Could he, the future benevolent and beloved ruler of this planet, go to home to rest in peace and quiet for a few hours? No, he could not. Because of Misa. Misa, Misa, Misa.

Oh, crap - Misa!

Their three year anniversary, how could he have forgotten? He checked his watch and turned to head back down the stairs again. What should he even get her? He'd tried expensive jewellery the past two years, and that seemed to work with most girls but Misa was hinting she wanted something more personal. And by hinting, he meant mentioning it to him every chance she got.

He fished out his phone. Screw this, he'd send Matsuda to do it. The man had acted as her manage and blatantly had a crush on her, so he'd be _sure_ to know what kind of thing she'd like to get. Besides, they were both equally mentally retarded so his thinking should be on her level.

Light noticed he had three messages, and dialled up his voice box while climbing into his car.

"_First message. Received today at 14:37,_" a cool voice said over the phone. Then, Misa's shrill whine cut over it. "Light! Don't forget tonight! I'm making you a special dinner, remember!"

Oh, what joy.

"_Second message. Received today at 18:52_: Light! Oh my gosh, I love you! The present is so wonderful, I knew you could do it! Perhaps we'll do something special tonight?" Misa giggled, and hung up again.

Light looked at the phone in confusion. Present…? Frowning, he lifted the phone to his ear once more.

"_Third message. Received today at 18: 56_." This time, Matsuda's voice took the place of the female speaker. "Hey, Light! Um, I just left your apartment, I figured you were so busy with the Kira case you'd forgotten your anniversary, okay? Because you didn't leave early like you did last year…um, point being, I wanted to give you a break 'cause you've been working so hard, so I got something for Misa from you, okay? Sorry if I've - um - gone wrong again…_End of messages. Main menu. To listen to your messages, press 1 -_"

Light hung up, returned the phone to his pocket, and climbed out of the car. Tomorrow, he was either going to have to thank Matsuda or fire him. Probably the later. Yes, he'd thought about sending Matsuda to buy the present, but he was meant to check with Light _first_ to see if it was suitable! The situation was out of his control and he didn't like it.

He headed back upstairs with a mixture of dread and fury knotting in his stomach. He pushed open the door to find -

- a five foot teddy bear holding a heart that said "I love you Misa".

Oh by God, where were they going to put it?

"LIGHT!" Misa flew out of a side room and flung her arms around Light's waist, almost knocking him over. He caught himself in time, and reluctantly returned the hug. "Ohmigod I love the present, it's so cute and it must have cost so much and it has my name on it and I can't believe you got us tickets to a play! I _love_ plays, I didn't even think you'd noticed, oh, Light, you're the best boyfriend _ever_!"

Light considered advising her to breathe between sentences but decided against it. "I'm…glad…you like it." _Note: check what play __"__I__"__ got her tickets too. And when._

"Of course I do!" Misa suddenly released him. "Oh, I have to go finish dinner! I'll be right back, Light!" With that, she positively skipped out of the room.

Light closed the door behind him, glowering at the bear that had taken over most of his living room. It was as big as Misa and almost as annoying. Though…Misa was certainly pleased with it. Perhaps Matsuda _did_ have a few brain cells after all. He glanced down at the table - two tickets for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' were lying next to a large bottle of champagne. Looked like the cop had gone all out for this. Light chuckled at the image of Matsuda spending all his money on this stuff for Misa and then having to eat cold bins out of a can in an unlit apartment for a month.

The devotion to Light was almost touching.

Maybe he should pay more attention to Matsuda, try getting him on his side a bit. The man had already made comments that showed him as half-supporting Kira's ideals, so maybe with a bit of effort…

….nah. Matsuda'd be more of a liability than Misa.

x

Lol the irony. The play is Midsummer Night's Dream because Misa likes to think she's cultured just because she knows who Shakespeare is.

So does Matsuda.

I kinda thought this was cute. Matsuda/Misa is a cute pairing even if Misa's rabid obsession with Light would mean it's not realistic. I can imagine him going without things like food and electricity to shower Misa with gifts, though. What a loveable dork.

I don't own a five foot bear, but I do own a four foot blue tiger. One of my friends actually brought it into school on birthday for me and everyone was like "wtf".

And now ANONYMOUS REVIEW REPLIES:

BetterMan: Glad you liked it, and lol yes. He goes into work and Aizawa stabs him with a pen Mikami-style for copying his old hairdo.

Calida Harada: Send a bullet flying and break light? Or Light? XD ha, bad DN joke. He so would though, you can imagine him and Ide being sent to a school to do a talk and coming back with Matsuda's arm in a sling and Ide having apparently taking up smoking and drinking heavily in the past three hours.

I'm now pretty sure this chapter's notes are as long as the fic. Well, hope you enjoyed.


	46. Charge Of The Light Brigade

Disclaimer: Not mine. Death Note is Ohba and Obata's, title belongs to Tennyson.

Note: I was going to do Matsuda and Misa talking in this one but it'll have to wait. Simple reason, I have epic on the brain. The reason for this will be discussed at the bottom of the page, because if I start it here, I'll just rant and never get onto the chapter. Title is a pun. 'Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die' seems to fit with the taskforce in my eyes, though. This literally came out of nowhere. I didn't know what to do with this prompt or even have any ideas, so…I think it went well!

x

**Charge of the Light Brigade**

**Prompt: 38. Tonight**

11.59.

Screams from inside, the Chief's order to go, glints of red in the darkness. Guns and riot suits and shoulders into doors to burst them open, but the only opposition is piles of dead bodies and it makes Matsuda sick, but they have a mission.

Survivors. Gunshots, smoke bombs. Matsuda crouches and takes aim and thank God for the practice at shooting with rifles because his aim is spot on and the slim black notebook goes flying out of the mobster's hand. Dashing forwards - they've retrieved it! - and they should go but Light says they have to find Mello, and Light might not want to risk their necks but L has to, Matsuda thinks. So they run upstairs.

Everything shakes and rumbles, and Matsuda groans and mumbles no when someone - he thinks it's Ide - asks him if he's okay. Mello's voice. Doors open. The Chief leaves. Silence falls.

Minutes pass in a stillness broken by thundering hearts and ragged breaths, and dust is heavy in the air. Then more gunshots, the sickening realisation that the Chief didn't have a gun, the taskforce charging against the door, firing at the man on the floor with his gun on the -

The Chief on the floor, bullet-proof vest torn to shreds by more bullets than it was meant to handle. Blood pooling. The smell of gunpowder.

A boy, lanky and blonde, with a gas mask obscuring his face. All leather and rosary beads, and Matsuda hates him at once. A trigger released. More explosions. Blackness.

Hospital monitors and the desperate screams of a father's child. No time for the wife and daughter to get here. Matsuda moves forward to catch Light as he stumbles backwards and the monitors flat line, and the boy feels like stone.

x

NOW I RANT. Okay. So the reason I was in epic mode was because I had this Death Note dream. It was like a montage thing and that's not really what I'm interested in telling you about, it's just what sparked the mood. The thing that sparked the dream, though (and upon which is was based, which was pretty damn awesome) is a fanfic currently in the works. A collab between myself and Maelstrom Sparrow. It's going to be AU after the four year gap. We're still working out plot holes and plot lines and who does what where and why. But I can promise you this: if the actual fic turns out ANYTHING like the way we're planning it, it's going to be as epic as anything. Summary kind of thing is that things go better than expected in the four year gap, and Kira has already taken control of most of the world. From there, it spirals. It'll be based around following Matsuda (my part of the story) on the good guy's side, and Mikami (Sparrow's part) on the bad guy's. At least, that's how they'll start.

I've wanted to write an epic, lengthy fanfic with a proper plot for ages and just never had the oomph to do so - which Sparrow has provided! I not only get to write, but half of it, I get to read - it'll be awesome. I hope you guys will give it a look when we put it up, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Ooh, another quick shout out: Kudatsuo-chan has started a story called Chimerical Apocryphal. This is basically going to be a collection of one shots about the characters, mostly based on more minor characters. Anyone who's spoken to me for more than about five minutes will know what a sucker for minor characters I am. One of the main characters in the collab fic is a girl who gets like one line in the entire manga. HANDS UP IF YOU KNOW WHO I MEAN. Anyway. Check this story out sometime. And I'm going to stop ranting now because I'm not sure if I'm making sense. I've had a very, very odd day and I'm not a hundred percent connected to reality at the moment. I'm going to…read Lolita or something.


	47. Apathy

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: …I am approaching this with less enthusiasm than it deserves. I can't sleep and I feel weird so meh. Chapter for you. Haven't seen Aizawa in a while, so here he is.

x

**Apathy**

**Prompt: 35. Date**

He gets in at ten to twelve and he's been out since before six and on his feet the whole time. He's tired, he's grimy, he can't be bothered to shower or even to get ready for bed. He fumbles for a drink and the idea of tackling the microwave isn't something that appeals to him so he rips open a bag of mini-pretzels Ide left here the last time they played poker, and collapses in front of the television. He doesn't turn it on. He sits, mechanically brings pretzels to his mouth, and sips whiskey.

Today, Matsuda turns 34. He briefly considers whether or not this fact matters to him. Six or seven pretzels later he decides that it does, but just not right now. The doorbell rings and he considers leaving it, but the desire to punch whoever's on the other side is much stronger.

"Aizawa?" He's confused because he just left work half an hour ago, and had seen Aizawa then. "What do you -"

"What time is it?"

"Uh, almost midnight," Matsuda offers, checking his watch.

"Good. Here, happy birthday. It's from all of us." He thrusts a parcel into Matsuda's hands and nods curtly. "I can't stay, sorry. Need to get home. Good work today, by the way."

Matsuda stands in the doorway for a few more minutes, blinking at the empty space before him. He looks down at the present in his hands.

They remembered.

He is far too tired to open it, though, so he lays it on the coffee table and decides to open it before work. His bedroom seems too far away so he brushes the pretzels off the couch, resolving to tidy in the morning as well, and he's asleep in minutes.

In the end he oversleeps, and then he has to shower, and he forgets to tidy and doesn't have time to check the present, and he feels guilty all the way to work and finds himself thanking Aizawa in broad, general terms, and the man laughs and steers him to his seat. He knows he's lying because they've been working together for ten years and Matsuda was never that hard to read anyway, but he tells him he's welcome and claps him on the shoulder, before returning to the business of starting the day.

x

I might wake up tomorrow and hate myself for posting this and wasting one of the precious few chapters I have left. Matsuda's present being left a mystery is brought to you by an exhausted and apathetic Bialy who couldn't think of anything to fill the gap with. As is Matsu's tiredness.

Review reply to Akira Tomyei: Ohba and Obata said that girl was just a random, far as I know. Matsuda kind of spent this birthday alone so…yeah. I'm not sure what you mean by I haven't done Matsuda and Soichiro yet. Putting Chief to sleep would be a cool chapter but I don't have the heart. Thank you for reviewing.


	48. Boundless

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Matsuda, or even any of the cool merchandise.

Note: Oh Misa. She finally gets more than a few lines or being dead in the background. I love the idea of ANY kind of relationship between these two because Misa's just about the only person who can out-nonsense Matsuda. And she's a GIRL OMG and we all secretly know he doesn't have a clue how to cope with those. As Misa points out here.

This was a heck of a lot of fun to write. Reference to MATURE THEMES below (like once) and some mild bad language. Hope you like this one, I know I do!

x

**Boundless**

**Prompt: 26. Fruit**

"…ugh, and her _hair_! I mean, does she even bother with it? Misa's is _much_ prettier!"

"Absolutely," Matsuda said absently, glancing up into the car's rear view mirror before pulling out into the road.

"She's stupid, too," Misa continued from the backseat, and Matsuda could almost _hear_ her poking her tongue out. "Light is obviously using her for the investigation, and he's stayed with _me_ for years! Are you listening to me, Matsu?"

"Huh -? Oh, yeah! Stupid, yeah. Definitely."

Misa leant forward to look over his shoulder. "Where are we going, anyway? To the rehersal?"

"Misa-Misa, please! Sit back, you could get hurt!" He glanced anxiously over his shoulder, and the blonde reluctantly sank back into her seat. "And yes; Mogi was busy so I'm taking you over. Like old times, huh?" He grinned at her in the mirror.

Misa stuck up her thumb and grinned back. "Uh-huh! And Matsu…" she gave him a sly sidelong look. "_You_ wouldn't _force_ me to be nice to the Taki-bitch, would you?"

"Uhm…" Matsuda said weakly. "Well, it's probably not a good idea to -"

"Matsu! She's a boyfriend stealing whore!" She slapped him on the shoulder and the car swerved dangerously. Matsuda spun the wheel around quickly and tried to ignore the honks from other drivers.

"Pfft. It doesn't matter," Misa continued, dropping back into her seat again. "Light left her for Misa once, he'll do it again." She sounded smug.

"…Right." Matsuda suddenly felt very bad about the whole thing. Even if it was primarily for the investigation, Light _did_ seem to be warming to Takada and getting colder towards Misa…he glanced at the model in the mirror again. She was pouting out of the window, her cheek resting on the crook of her arm.

Should he tell her what Light had been saying…?

"Anyway!" Misa said, loudly and suddenly, and it surprised him so much he almost lost control of the car again. "What about Matsu? Have you got a girlfriend yet?"

"Have I got a - what?" Matsuda felt the colour rising in his cheeks. "Misa…"

She giggled. "You know, a girlfriend! Haven't you ever had one, Matsu?"

"Wha -? Of course I have! I just - I've been - the Kira case -" He lapsed into stuttering, his face burning.

Misa's giggles turned into peels of laughter as the lights turned red and Matsuda slowed the car to a halt. She leant forwards once more, gripping his shoulder so she look at him directly.

"Matsuuuu! What are you doing? You must be at least thirty by now! You need to find someone you love, like Misa and Light have!"

Matsuda stared at her helplessly. "I don't think it's that easy…" He wished the lights would change.

"It would be easier if you made an effort!" She swung herself into the passenger seat, tutting, and Matsuda suddenly realised that she must not have been wearing a seatbelt at all. He opened his mouth to lecture her about the danger of doing that, but she had already regained her momentum. "I mean, you don't go _anywhere_ where you could meet girls, and whenever one of my friends talked to you when you were my manager you just turned red and dropped stuff!"

"Put your seatbelt on, Misa-Misa," he said lamely.

Making a dismissive noise, she complied, not slowing for a second. "And you could do something about your fashion sense, you just wear those shirts! At least Mochi has those polos he wears, and Monchichi _had_ his cute hair, until he cut it…Matsu! You should do something with _your_ hair!"

To Matsuda's relief the lights switched to green and he pulled off, Misa still chattering away about how he could improve his luck with women next to him. He supposed he should be glad she wasn't still fuming about Takada, but all he could feel at the moment was increasingly uncomfortable.

"…when was the last time you went on a date? When was the last time you had _sex_? …you _have_ had sex before, right Matsu?"

It was going to be a long drive.

x

Implication that Matsuda might still be a virgin at thirty credited to Gamecrazy 25 after her latest chapter of Spiders.

Someone suggested Misa and Matsu talking when he was her manager…was it you, Sonar? I had that idea on my list from ages ago and that prompted me to do it…only I wanted to work Takada in. Because idk she IS a character and needs to at least be mentioned a couple of times in this thing.

Anyone interested in my collab with Sparrow: chapter one should be up soon and I'll link in my profile!


	49. Teacup

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Yes, still.

Note: Today, I have a surprise for you. Actually, it's not much of a surprise but meh. See, here's the thing: I hated this prompt. Ironically, the prompt was Hate. Easy, you might think, but not so. Not for me. For various reasons (not wanting to be too clichéd, not wanting to get too angst) I found it difficult. I then wrote something about Matsuda wondering if he hated Kira, and promptly decided that it was not only cliché and angst, but also virtually the same as a number of other chapters in this story. However, I liked it and didn't want to just delete it after writing it. So, you get two ficlets. One, the official version, is first. Then there's the abandoned one that I couldn't bring myself to discard. It's yours to peruse at your pleasure.

x

**Teacup**

**Prompt: 09. Hate**

Matsuda decided that Ryuzaki must hate him.

Surely he wasn't so useless that the only thing he could be assigned to do was make coffee and look excited? Because when you got down to it, that was what being Misa's manager involved: looking excited and running around after her like an eager puppy.

And just because he wasn't as smart as Light, as observant as the Chief, as efficient as Mogi…it didn't mean he couldn't _try_! It didn't mean he couldn't take care of stuff, too…he could still help. He shouldn't be just pushed aside - he was risking his life here, just like the rest of them! They could at least _pretend_ to need him…

Matsuda ends up breaking into Yotsuba, and thinking back it was a pretty stupid thing to do. Even if he got out with some information, it had upset all of Ryuzaki's plans _and_ forced him to stage a stupid rescue.

If the detective hadn't hated him before, he _definitely_ hated him now.

He was surprised, then, one night when he had stayed up later than usual (determined to make a good impression, determined to get better at what he was doing), a couple of days after the Yotsuba incident. Light had fallen asleep, exhausted from the obscure hours Ryuzaki insisted on keeping, and was resting his head on his arms while Ryuzaki worked tirelessly on beside him.

"Matsuda-san."

"Huh?" Matsuda had been closing things down, tidying his station, ready to leave. Perhaps Ryuzaki wanted some more coffee? "What's up?"

Ryuzaki turned his pale face up to him. "Your actions at Yotsuba a few days ago were very brave."

"Oh…oh! Thank you!" Matsuda felt his chest swell a little, and grinned at the detective.

"Brave, and foolish."

"Ah…" He felt himself deflate again.

"However…I am grateful for the risk you took. But please, don't do it again."

Matsuda perked up again immediately. "R-really? Thank you! Um, again."

"I have a small favour to ask you, Matsuda-san. It's rather trivial, I'm afraid."

"What is it, Ryuzaki?"

"I have discovered that you make a very delicious cup of coffee. I was wondering if, before you headed to bed, you would mind trying your hand at a cup of tea?" Ryuzaki cocked his head to the side and smiled slightly, dangling an empty teacup from one of his long fingers.

Matsuda couldn't help but laugh. "Sure. Why not?"

x

**Cohesion**

**Prompt: 09. Hate (Alternate)**

Some time in April, Matsuda decides that he doesn't really _hate_ Kira - as much as he wants him caught - because even though the guy killed those FBI agents, and is murdering people who may still be found to be innocent, Matsuda's mother confided in him that she's not so afraid to walk down the street after eight in the evening any more. So he can't he all bad, right?

A year or two later he changes his mind and thinks he probably does hate Kira, because however ideological the guy might be, however much good his actions have done, he killed L - _he killed Ryuzaki_ - and anyone who took that away from the world, took that brilliance, that brightness and snuffed it out deserved to captured, deserved to be punished. But…_didn__'__t_ deserve to be killed. Today, anyway.

Matsuda changes his mind back and forth for a few years and then the Chief dies, and it wasn't Kira who killed him, really, so can he hate him for that? It confuses him and he asks Ide and the others if they really think Kira is evil, and they dismiss it, but Light seems to know where he's coming from. He's still confused but he knows they have to catch Kira anyway, so he resolves to hate Mello, and moves on.

It's not long after that N - Near - starts saying that Light is Kira, and that's what Ryuzaki started saying before he died so Matsuda wonders if that means Near is going to die, too. For a moment he thinks the guy would deserve it for ever suspecting Light, but he feels instantly guilty and reasons that Near doesn't _know_ Light, and if he did, he'd be as sure as Matsuda that he was innocent.

When Aizawa starts suspecting Light, Matsuda doesn't know what to think.

In an abandoned warehouse near a wharf Matsuda doesn't think at all, doesn't even try to, because he's seeing everything through a haze of betrayal and grief. He goes for his gun and people keep congratulating him on it so he supposes it must have done some good, but it doesn't feel like it, not when he pulls the trigger and not for a long time afterwards. Really, not at all.

Years pass and eventually Matsuda becomes old. He has been on many cases since Kira was killed, and a lot of them have been almost half as dangerous, almost half as difficult. He has forgotten most of them, but he cannot forget Kira, if only for the years he spent on it, the things it taught him. Since that case, he has become less trusting, though perhaps, he thinks, still as stupid. He still does not know if he hated Kira, or if he hated Light. He remembers, though, the few moments when he _was_ sure, the few moments in his life when he had complete, total, perfect confidence that was he was doing was right.

Those are the moments that give him the most nightmares, though, and he'd do anything to forget them, except forgetting them would mean giving up that certainty, abandoning himself to confusion with no end in sight.

Matsuda still doesn't know what to think, in the end. But he gets by.

x

Oh and INCIDENTALLY. The first chapter of 'War Paint', my collaboration with Maelstrom Sparrow, is up. There's a link on my profile, it's at our imaginatively named joint account 'Bialy and Sparrow'. In time there'll be a few one shots surrounding it which will also end up there. In the meantime, if anyone who doesn't mind reading some AU ramblings wants to give it a look, I'd love you forever. Especially if you reviewed it! Anyway, hope you enjoyed the UNPRECEDENTED two-ficlet-chapter. Coming up next is…the last chapter of this thing. Don't worry, I promise not to put it off just because I don't want it to end. I've had the idea for this one in mind from about the eighth chapter or so, so hey.

Anyway, I've rambled a LOT in this chapter. The extra story text makes up for it I hope? Well, I'm off for tonight. Final chapter of this, and my new ficlet-collection story 'In Passing' will be up soon!


	50. We Pick Ourselves Up

Disclaimer: If you haven't established by THIS point in the story, after forty nine other disclaimers and my continued destruction of the character of Touta Matsuda, allow me to reiterate: I don't own this, I never will.

Note: Omg last chapter. Sorry for delay in updating (and to Sparrow for delays in more War Paint stuff)…real life has intervened a little. But here's Chapter 50. Full EPICALLY LONG note at the end where you can skip over it more easily :3

x

**We Pick Ourselves Up**

**Prompt: 48. Soul**

The warehouse has mostly emptied. A boy is sitting on the floor, twirling between his fingers a scrap of paper, covered in a tight scrawl and smears of blood. There may be someone else there, or there may be a number of people surrounding him. There may also be blood and bodies. He does not notice.

Outside the warehouse, it is not so still. The angel has flown away, it is shedding its red feathers so it should be easy to find, but it isn't. Perhaps the searchers are not looking that hard. Between them, there is an element of hesitation. He is wounded, if they leave him, he will die. And then it will not be their choice (will not be their fault) what happens to him.

They are uncertain, but for Matsuda, there is uncertainty about the uncertainty. If they find Light, what happens to him will be their fault. If they don't, it's only Matsuda to take the blame. His gun and his bullets make it his kill.

Whatever blame there is for catching Kira, anyway. But it's not like the world will know, so, really, it shouldn't bother him.

Later that night he has a dream, and in dreams everything is different so he doesn't make too much of what his dream-self is feeling. The feelings are horrible, a twisted mixture of anger and devastation, and he's glad when he jolts awake. But then he wakes up properly, and he can't excuse it as a dream anymore, because it's still there.

Days pass.

Matsuda fumbles for coffee and burns toast. He rubs his eyes a couple of times and takes some pills (he isn't too sure what) and tries the whole thing again from the start. It works better but he takes his time with it anyway. He tells himself to be careful but really it's to use up time, because he's just worked out that he doesn't know what he's going to do for the rest of the day. Everything is over, slammed shut and locked up, and everything that isn't will be taken care of by Near anyway.

He is tired.

He meanders around the kitchen a bit more, and then grabs his coat. Whenever he was unsure of what do to next he would ask the Chief, but that's not an option anymore so he goes to the NPA because it's as close as he's going to get. Aizawa and Ide and Mogi are there, and he thinks they know what they're meant to be doing but when he looks again they look just as uncertain, just as afraid. Aizawa's saying something but Matsuda, he just stares at him, and he can't work out how to change the sounds coming out of the older man's mouth into something intelligible. Aizawa steers him back the way they came.

They sit in a café. It's too expensive for breakfast and Matsuda isn't hungry, but they make him eat. Aizawa seems to be the most awake, and Matsuda just doesn't understand any of them anymore.

He hasn't dreamt again. He thinks he probably will, though, once he's caught up on four years of lost sleep. He's so, _so _tired. He doesn't think about Kira. He can't.

Of the three people sitting around him, all know him very well and none are stupid. They notice the glassiness in his eyes, and the fact that his hair sticks up at odd angles and hasn't been washed. They can tell why. In parts of themselves, they feel the same. They know, though, that they don't feel it so keenly.

So they stand up, and pay the bill for Matsuda's uneaten pancakes as well as their own. Ide keeps up a constant stream of chatter while Aizawa drives and talks to Mogi in a low voice. They go to Aizawa's, because it's the biggest and his kids are at school at this time of the day. His wife smiles and fixes drinks, and Ide and Aizawa look at each other across the table.

It will be hard, but they'll get past this. The hardest part will be Matsuda, picking him up and pulling him through and making him go on, making him get past it.

Somehow, though, they'll manage.

x

..I used the anime ending instead of the manga ending. It allows for more movement even though I personally find the manga ending MOAR EPIC. And there's like fifty other reasons why I prefer it but we don't need another Bialy rant.

Ah, I can't believe this thing is finished! Sorry for making you guys wait for the last chapter, and sorry if it's a bit of a let down. I had this idea planned for a while and I think it turned out okay. Essentially what I wanted to get across was…angst with some hopefulness at the end? Story of Matsuda's life, the way I end up writing him XD

Now, time for some thank-yous. I love all of you who've reviewed and all of you've who've read this far, but some of you have been reviewing every few chapters, not just the once, and some have been reviewing practically every chapter. As such, this thing has gathered up over 170 reviews. It's the first relatively large fanfic project I've undertaken and to get this kind of response is amazing. On a personal note, it's boosted my confidence and given me the initiative to make 'positive changes' in my life, as well as letting me find some great people to chat and write with.

And now CHEESY INDIVIDUAL THANK-YOUS.

Kudatsuo-chan: thank you for being my first reviewer, and for keeping on reviewing right up to now (even though you have an abysmally busy schedule). Fic is dedicated to you, my friend!

Gamecrazy 25: you've managed to review almost every chapter, I think, from when you started reading, even when I've been talking to you through PMs and there's nothing to say about the chapter.

Dattebayo Girl: you were one of my first readers! You've reviewed and offered up a ton of great anecdotes XD Thank you so much for sticking with this even though it's not really as humorous as you seem to like things usually. I take it as a compliment!

Volital: my dear, you're insane, and your reviews have always made me grin. Hope you and Alyssa have enjoyed XD

Sonar: you've been providing my with ideas and challenges all the way along, so a good portion of this fic is probably thanks to you. Your reviews have been great and I've had so much fun with the stuff you've suggested, thank you!

Death to pink: you even reviewed this when you were one holidays, thank you! I loved reading and replying to your reviews, you always had so much to say.

Morne: you managed to leave such epically long reviews, I think some of your reviews might have actually been longer than the chapters o.O They were so much fun to read and I've loved debating and discussing Death Note with you - I don't get that opportunity much!

Luinramwen: I loved your reviews! You commented on what you liked and it was so nice to read. Thanks so much for keeping on with this thing!

Canderjack, Maelstrom Sparrow and bookthehobbit, thanks go to you too for repeated reviewing :D And Sparrow, I PROMISE to get more War Paint to you soon.

O…kay. My authors note ran WAY on there, but it's the last chapter so just excuse me for it? I've had so much fun writing this and I hope you've liked reading it.

Now…I haven't really asked for reviews much all the way along, but I'm going to now: if you've read this from chapter one to chapter fifty, please let me know. You don't have to say much or write a length critique or anything, but if you've enjoyed it, I'd love you forever if you just left a note letting me know! Especially interested if you had a favourite chapter :D

Anything else you guys want to see, let me know. My collab with Sparrow (War Paint), Occupational Hazards, and a new story In Passing will be continued/started, along with…well, whatever.

This story here is done.


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